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The  Influence   of    French 
Literature  on    Europe 

An  Historical  Research  Reference  of  Literary  Value 

To  Students  in  Universities,  Normal  Schools, 

And  Junior  Colleges. 

BY 

EMELINE  M.  JENSEN,  Ph.  D. 


BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE   GORHAM    PRESS 


Copyright,  1919,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All  Rights  Reserved 


MADE   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES   OF    AMERICA 


Thb  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


A  Madame  Luise  Rostand  Jarnmes, 
qui  m'  inspire  cet  livre 


PREFACE 

The  mission  of  this  little  work  is  to  bring  before  the 
reader  the  influence  that  the  life  and  thought  of  the 
French  people,  as  shown  in  their  literature,  have  had  upon 
the  world. 

Not  only  many  of  the  scientific  discoveries,  but  also  some 
of  the  most  brilliant  ideas  in  literature  have  been  accred- 
ited to  other  nations,  although  they  are  French  in  their 
origin. 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  trace  the  influence  of 
France  from  her  earliest  days  to  the  present  time,  and  to 
inspire  the  reader  with  a  real  love  for  the  French  people. 

The  French  people  so  brilliant,  so  courageous,  so  full 
of  animation  and  vim  are  a  people  whom  we  to-day  es- 
pecially wish  to  know.  The  literature  helps  us  to  under- 
stand and  to  appreciate  them.  It  tells  us  what  they  thought, 
how  they  lived,  how  they  fought,  and  what  they  did. 
The  French  esprit  and  culture  come  to  us  through  their 
literary  works.  Nowhere  else  do  we  find  such  living  wit 
such  love  for  order,  beauty,  and  clearness  of  style.  The 
French  show  a  constant  tendency  to  please  even  when  con- 
tradicting. They  have  an  original  aptitude  for  sociability, 
which  has  endeared  them  to  other  nations.  The  phrases 
and  sentences,  as  well  as  words  of  the  French  introduced 
into  the  English  during  the  Norman  Conquest,  have  had 
much  to  do  in  giving  the  English  a  refining  tone.  For  in 
a  subtle  way,  every  language  grows  to  associate  with  it- 
self the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  the  people  with  whose 

7 


8  Preface 

lives  it  is  inextricably  inter-woven.  So  the  French,  breath- 
ing an  air  of  extreme  culture  and  refinement  has  per- 
meated our  language  with  the  same  culture.  Ever  since 
the  early  dawn  of  civilization,  the  French  people  full  of 
ready  wit,  creative  imagination,  and  spirit  have  led  the 
literary  world. 

It  is  the  desire  of  the  author  to  inculcate  in  the  minds 
of  the  young  students  a  real  love  for  that  which  is  French. 
— a  love  for  the  creative  art  and  the  genius  d'  esprit  of  the 
French,  a  love  for  the  French  people,  their  language  and 
literature. 

The  college  and  university  students  will  find  here 
in  this  little  work  of  historical  literary  research  ma- 
terial for  the  writing  of  themes  and  essays  on  the  sub- 
ject of  France  and  what  she  has  given  to  the  world. 
In  order  that  the  student  may  read  more  widely  on  this 
subject,  ample  references  to  larger  and  more  complete 
works  have  been  given.  May  the  reader  be  inspired  to 
read  many  of  the  French  works  on  the  subject  of  the 
greater  freedom  for  which  we  are  now  fighting! 

It  has  been  said  justly,  "Every  man  has  two  countries — 
his  own  and  France,"  tout  homme  a  deux  pays,  le  s'xen  et 
puis  la  France — Bounier.  This  is  true  now  more  than 
ever  when  France  has  become  a  part  of  us  in  the  great 
struggle  for  freedom,  in  the  struggle  for  world-wide 
Democracy, — the  freedom  where  the  individual  shall  be 
educated  as  a  unit  and  shall  be  encouraged  to  think  and 
act  for  himself, — a  freedom  where  a  man  can  grow  and 
expand  only  by  striving  to  lift  others  up  to  a  higher  plane 
of  thinking  and  living, — a  freedom  which  shall  indeed 


Preface  9 

lead  to  Liberte,  Fraternite,  Egalite, — a  freedom  based  on 
tolerance,  harmony,  and  peace  everlasting. 

France  through  her  wonderful  literature  has  shown  us 
how  to  live,  through  her  undaunted  courage  she  has  set 
us  an  example  of  how  to  fight,  and  through  her  wonder- 
ful bravery  has  shown  us  how  to  die.  It  was  a  French 
mother  who  after  losing  six  sons  in  this  present  war  for 
freedom  said,  "I  gave  my  six  sons  for  the  liberty  of  France. 
I  am  sorry  I  have  not  a  seventh  one  to  give." 

The  author  wishes  to  express  her  sincere  gratitude 
to  those  whose  eminent  scholarship  has  been  of  great  aid 
in  the  writing  of  this  book,  Dr.  Robert  L.  Fleury,  Kath- 
ryn  Monroney  Ray,  M.  A.,  and  Dr.  Ida  Kruse  Mc  Far- 
lance,  of  Denver  University.  The  writer  would  also  thank 
those  other  friends  who  have  as  kindly,  though  in  a  minor 
degree,  helped  with  suggestions  and  advice  in  the  publica- 
tion of  this  work. 

E.  M.  J. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

Preface   7 

I.     First  Period    15 

Eleventh,  Twelfth  and  Thirteenth  Cen- 
turies 

II.     Second  Period  1273-1494 20 

The  Renaissance 

III.  Third  Period 31 

Seventeenth  Century — Later  Half  of  the 
Seventeenth  Century,  The  Golden  Age 

IV.  Fourth   Period    52 

Eighteenth  Century — Voltaire  1694- 
1778 — Rousseau  17 12- 1778 — Schiller 
1759-1805  —  Wieland  1733-1813 — 
Spain 

V.     Fifth  Period  99 

Chateaubriand  1 768-1 848 — Joseph  Mai- 
tre  1754-1821 — After  the  Restoration 
— Victor  Hugo   1 802-1885 — England 

VI.     Bergson  at  the  College  of  France 119 

Spanish  and  French  Marriages 

Index   125 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

ON  EUROPE 


THE  NAME  OF  FRANCE 

Give  us  a  name  to  fill  the  mind 
With  the  shining  thoughts  that  lead  mankind, 
The  glory  of  learning,  the  joy  of  art, — 
A  name  that  tells  of  a  splendid  part 
In  the  long,  long  toil  and  the  strenuous  fight 
Of  the  human  race  to  win  its  way 
From  the  feudal  darkness  into  the  day 
Of  Freedom,  Brotherhood,  Equal  Right, — 
A  name  like  a  star,  a  name  of  light. 
I  give  you  France! 

— Henry  Van  Dyke 


The  Influence  of  French 
Literature  on  Europe 

CHAPTER  I 

1 

First  Period 
Eleventh,  Twelfth  and  Thirteenth  Centuries 

THROUGH  the  medium  of  the  French,  the  epic  of 
the  Celtic  and  Graeco-Roman  traditions  was  re- 
juvenated and  transformed  into  the  German  epic.  The 
ideas  of  chivalry  coming  from  the  French  find  expression 
in  the  minnesongs  of  the  twelfth  century.  In  them  we 
find  the  aristocratic  ideas  of  life  portrayed.  These  laid  the 
foundation  of  public  life  in  that  time.  It  is  from  the 
French  that  the  chivalric  ideal  gets  its  supreme  poetic  ex- 
pression. The  extreme  idea  of  individuality  has  its  roots 
in  humanism  introduced  by  the  French  and  taken  up  and 
advanced  by  Goethe  and  Kant. 

The  German  Rolandslied  is  almost  a  direct  imitation  of 
the  French  Chanson  de  Roland.  However,  the  Chanson 
de  Roland  is  full  of  patriotic  love  and  intense  enthusiasm 
for  "sweet  France"  and  her  great  heroes.  It  is  in  itself  a 
beautiful  testimony  of  the  growth  of  French  national  feel- 
ing. The  Rolandslied  lacks  greatly  in  vim  and  enthu- 
siasm, as  is  apt  to  be  the  case  with  imitators. 

15 


1 6  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

The  provincial  troubadour  song  was  the  direct  inspira- 
tion of  the  minnesong.  It  is  due  to  those  beautiful  trouba- 
dour songs  that  we  have  the  rich  and  full-sounding  Ger- 
man lyrical  verse,  which  so  nicely  shows  the  poetic  and 
chivalrous  conception  of  love,  seen  in  the  minnesong.  The 
court  epic  of  which  the  Nibelungen  Lied  is  a  good  exam- 
ple, is  an  outgrowth  of  chivalrous  songs  which  were  in- 
spired by  the  French  troubadours.  These  German  epics 
came  from  foreign  traditions  and  were  made  to  charm  the 
ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  aristocracy  who  admired  gal- 
lantry and  were  well  versed  in  court  manners.  France 
was  the  land  and  home  of  cavaliers,  and  from  there  the 
ideas  of  gallantry  as  well  as  the  poetical  traditions  had 
been  brought  into  Germany.  In  these  lyrics  we  find  the 
chivalrous  spirit  at  its  height.  In  the  poems  for  court  so- 
ciety, we  find  a  direct  imitation  of  French  court  manners, 
the  striving  to  cultivate  a  sense  for  class  distinction  and 
conventionalties.  We  find  in  them  all  kinds  of  French 
fashionable  sports  and  so  cannot  doubt  that  the  French 
were  the  originators.  Were  it  not  for  the  French  chivalric 
period,  we  should  not  have  had  the  beautiful  stories  of 
Wolfram's  Parcival  or  Gottfried's  Tristam. 

France  always  has  distinguished  herself  for  learning. 
As  far  back  as  771,  when  Charles  the  Great  was  king  of 
France  and  Emperor  of  the  West,  he  established  an  acad- 
emy in  his  palace  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  he  himself  at- 
tended the  sittings.  By  his  liberality  he  attracted  the  most 
distinguished  scholars  to  his  court.1  France  then  flourished 
in  learning ;  she  was  already  richer  in  books  and  in  scholars 


1.     Crown's  Encyclopaedia. 


Eleventh,  Twelfth  and  Thirteenth  Centuries        17 

than  any  other  country  at  the  time.  She  was  even  then 
sending  her  beacon  lights  of  learning  into  all  parts  of  the 
world.  The  great  men  of  Germany  came  to  Paris  to 
discuss  questions  of  education. 

Charles  the  Great  in  his  long  reign  of  forty-six  years, 
spread  French  learning  and  culture  over  many  lands.  Let 
us  quote  from  Nelsons  Encyclopaedia:  "He  conducted  or 
directed  fifty-three  expeditions,  and  warred  against  twelve 
nations."  Again:  "He  encouraged  agriculture,  commerce, 
and  industry,  both  by  precept  and  example.  Himself  no 
mean  scholar,  he  welcomed  to  his  court  men  of  learning 
such  as  Alcuin  and  Eginhard,  established  schools,  pro- 
moted great  public  works,  built  splendid  palaces  and  in 
every  way  showed  that  he  had  the  heart  and  the  brain  to 
rule  the  realms  his  military  genius  had  won."2 

According  to  some  scholars  no  one  of  the  ancients  could 
be  placed  above  him,  and  the  age  in  which  he  lived  could 
not  show  his  equal  in  learning  and  talent. 

The  didactic  and  narrative  poetry  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury can  also  be  traced  to  the  French.  These  poems,  which 
in  many  respects  show  that  they  are  an  outgrowth  of  the 
minnesong,  inspired  by  the  French  troubadours,  as  we 
have  seen,  were  not  intended  to  amuse  and  to  flatter  court 
society,  but  rather  to  instruct  the  people  in  general  in  the 
mysteries  of  human  nature  and  character.  They  may  be 
said  to  be  an  amusing  and  instructive  caricature  of  human 
nature  and  society.  It  is  an  effort  to  picture  human  char- 
acter as  developed  under  the  everyday  influences  and  ex- 
periences.    "The  Reinike  de  Vas,  is  plainly  the  develop- 


2.    See  also  Mullenger's  The  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great. 


1 8         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

ment  of  the  animal  epic  from  the  Ecbasis  Captivi  and  hen- 
grirnas  through  the  French  Roman  de  Renart  and 
Isengrimes  Not,  by  Heinrich  des  Gichesaere  to  the  Roman 
van  den  vos  Reinaerde  by  the  Flemish  poet  Willena  and 
from  there  to  the  low  German  Reinike,  and  still  further 
into  the  modern  high  German  Reinike  Fuchs  by  Goethe. 
In  these  stories  Sir  Isengrim,  the  wolf,  afterwards  created 
earl  of  Pikewood  in  the  beast-epic  of  Reynard  the  Fox 
typifies  the  Barons  and  Reynard,  the  church.  The  gist  of 
the  story  is  to  show  how  Reynard  over-reaches  his  uncle 
the  wolf. 

"The  origin  of  this  comic  and  satirical  production  is  in- 
volved, like  most  fables  of  the  kind,  in  considerable  doubt 
and  perplexity.  The  earliest  printed  German  copy  would 
appear  to  have  been  that  of  1498  which  is  in  the  dialect  of 
the  lower  Saxony,  though  there  was  a  Dutch  romance  in 
prose,  bearing  the  same  title  Histoire  by  the  Reynart  de 
Vos,  published  at  Delft,  in  1485.  The  former  one  of  1498 
was  afterward  translated  into  high  German  and  also  into 
Latin.  It  has  been  referred  to  many  individuals  as  the  au- 
thor,— most  commonly  to  Henry  von  Alkina  but  that  his 
was  not  the  first  of  the  kind  would  appear  from  his  preface, 
in  which  he  merely  assumes  the  merit  of  its  translation. 
Nicholas  Baumann,  who  is  stated  to  have  written  it  as  a 
satire  upon  the  Chancellor  of  the  Duke  Julius,  is  another 
author  to  whom  it  has  with  less  authority,  however,  been 
attributed,  his  addition  bearing  no  earlier  date  than  1522. 
In  the  translation  it  is  stated  to  have  been  borrowed 
from  the  Italian  and  French  tongues,  but  its  individual 
origin  is  not  pointed  out.  It  is  so  far  left  in  doubt, 
whether  the  German  author  copied  from  the  Dutch  pub- 


Eleventh,  Twelfth  and  Thirteenth  Centuries        19 

lications  at  Delft,  where  the  sole  remaining  copy  is  still, 
or  whether  both  were  translated  or  imitated  from  the 
French  or  some  more  hidden  material  of  which  the  manu- 
scripts have  perished." — T.  Roscoe. 

In  the  French  these  narrative  poems  are  far  more  naive 
than  we  find  them  in  the  latter  imitations,  which  would 
go  to  prove  that  they  were  originally  French.  The  credit 
we  give  the  French  here  is  important,  as  their  stories  are 
the  forerunners  of  the  modern  realistic  novels  which  we  at 
the  present  day  seek  for  so  ardently.  In  Reinike  we  find  a 
great  many  incidents  and  situations  drawn  for  the  purpose 
of  showing  the  emptiness  and  voidness  of  the  conventionali- 
ties of  society.  We  find  the  respect  for  all  kinds  of  human 
beings,  the  sympathy  for  the  innocent  and  lowly,  the  hatred 
for  arbitrary  power,  and  the  respect  for  wisdom  rather 
than  cunning ;  in  fact,  we  find  the  same  realistic  tendencies 
which  mark  our  present  time.  Hence,  while  we  may  say 
that  these  animal  epics  contain  too  much  of  the  weirdness 
of  the  animal  nature  to  be  real  portrayals  of  human  char- 
acter, yet  in  the  modern  novel  we  see  the  same  endeavor 
to  show  the  ridiculous  side  of  conventionality  where  it  is 
not  backed  by  common  sense  and  a  desire  to  suppress  un- 
just oppression  and  power ;  and  we  can  but  draw  the  con- 
clusion that  the  modern  realistic  novel  takes  its  roots  in 
these  same  narrative  poems. 


CHAPTER  II 

Second  Period,  i  273-1 494 
The  Renaissance 

THOUGH  the  Renaissance  began  in  Italy,  yet  it  was 
through  the  French1  that  it  spread  so  rapidly  through 
the  Western  continent.  Fischart's  paraphrase  of  Rabelais's 
Gargantua  shows  the  effect  of  the  French  Renaissance  up- 
on Germany  in  particular.  The  Renaissance  was  a  great 
declaration  of  independence.  It  was  a  breaking  away  from 
the  old  set  of  rules  and  a  returning  to  the  true  classic  art. 
In  art,  it  called  forth  the  masterpieces  of  Raphael,  Michael 
Angelo,  and  da  Vinci.  In  religion,  it  led  the  way  to  the 
Reformation.  In  philosophy,  it  overthrew  scholasticism. 
In  politics,  it  abolished  feudalism  by  giving  inspiration  to 
independence  of  thought  and  action  and  by  calling  forth 
the  sentiment  of  nationality,  and  preparing  the  foundation 
for  a  constitutional  government.  In  classic  art  Italy  took 
the  lead,  yet  it  was  France  that  brought  this  art  into  Ger- 
many, England,  and  Spain.  This  she  did  the  more  easily 
because  she  had  intimate  relations  with  these  countries  in 
wars  and  commerce.  "France  having  at  last  escaped  from 
the  disastrous  English  wars,  showed  her  marvelous  powers 
of  recuperation.  Nor  was  she  behind  in  art.  In  the  reign 
of   Louis   XII,    the   domestic   architecture   of   the   early 


1.  "To  Italy  first  and  then  from  Italy  to  France  and 
throughout  the  whole  of  Western  Europe."  Guizot,  Concise 
History  of  France,  p.  265. 

20 


The  Renaissance  21 

Renaissance  style  reached,  perhaps,  its  highest  point  of  ex- 
cellence before  it  became  over-refined  with  ornaments  and 
overloaded  with  luxuries ;  for  instance,  witness  the  eastern 
facade  of  the  Chateau  of  Blais,  and  part  of  the  Chateau 
of  Amboise.  While  so  renowned  were  the  glass  painters 
of  France,  that  Julian  II,  sent  for  the  artists  Claude  and 
William  de  Marseille,  to  help  decorate  the  windows  of 
the  Vatican."2 

Germany  was,  no  doubt,  most  deeply  affected  by  the 
Reformation,  especially  on  the  religious  and  ecclesiastical 
side,  yet  in  the  wider  sense  of  the  Reformation  it  was 
France  that  took  the  lead.  Jacques  Lefevre  of  Etables 
may  fairly  claim  the  title  of  Father  of  the  French  Prot- 
estantism. When  he  was  a  lecturer  on  theology  in  Paris  in 
1512,  he  had  taught  in  a  commentary  on  the  Epistles  of 
Saint  Paul,  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  five  years 
before  Luther  had  denounced  indulgences.  The  same  year 
under  the  patronage  of  Briconnet,  the  Bishop,  he  had  col- 
lected a  small  band  of  men  at  Meanx  in  Champagne,  of 
whom  Farel  of  Dauphine  was  the  most  important  and  had 
also  influenced  Berquin,  a  nobleman  and  courtier,  who 
was  the  friend  of  Erasmus.  The  University  of  the  Sor- 
bonne  and  also  the  Parliament  of  Paris  opposed  these  new 
teachings  of  freedom  of  thought  and  action;  but  Francis 
I,  who  had  started  the  College  de  France,  stood  firmly  by 
the  Protestants.  His  staunch  support  and  the  influence  of 
the  new  college  strengthened  the  cause  of  the  Protestants 
greatly  in  spite  of  the  jealousy  of  the  Sorbonne.  Francis 
was  so  much  in  love  with  the  new  movement  that  he  ap- 
pointed  Lefevre  as  tutor  to  his  children.     Calvin   and 


2.    See  Johnson'i  History  of  Modem  Europe,  pp.  90-91. 


22         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

Zwingli  were  the  two  great  leaders  in  the  movement  for 
the  Reformation.  It  was  their  writings  which  were  writ- 
ten in  French  and  translated  into  German  that  stirred  up 
the  people  to  an  assertion  of  freedom  of  thought  and  wor- 
ship. Calvin's  works  were  not  only  of  value  because  of 
their  influence  upon  the  Reformation  movement,  but  also 
because  of  their  high  literary  value.  His  works  were  trans- 
lated into  many  languages  and  were  scattered  over  all  of 
Europe.  "In  1535  he  dedicated  his  Institutes  to  Francis 
I  in  the  hope  of  convincing  the  king  that  his  doctrines 
were  not  dangerous,  and  from  that  moment  the  French 
rapidly  assimilated  the  teachings  of  their  great  country- 
man."3 

In  philosophy  France  took  the  lead.  The  Renaissance 
led  to  the  spirit  of  criticism  which  was  especially  strong  in 
France.  Francis  I  was  so  much  interested  in  literature  and 
philosophy  that  he  wanted  to  establish  a  school  of  literature 
and  philosophy  with  Erasmus  at  the  head.4 

Louis  XII  and  Francis  I  were  both  in  sympathy  with 
learning  to  a  high  degree.  Under  Louis  XIV  France 
reached  its  supremacy.5 

In  politics  again  it  is  France  that  leads.0  Lodge  says 
that  in  1273  as  in  1313  Germany  was  a  mere  bundle  of 
States  under  a  nominal  head,  while  France  had  received 


3.  Johnson's  Sixteenth  Century  History,  p.  389. 

4.  Johnson,  p.  388. 

5.  France  was  the  first  to  feel  a  sense  of  real  national  unity 
and  to  build  a  constitutional  government,  p.  518  Johnson. 

6.  In  no  other  period  have  the  distinguishing  characteris- 
tics of  French  intellect  and  ingenious  method,  logical  sequence 
of  ideas  and  lucidity  of  style  been  so  conspicuous,  p.  64,  The 
Cambridge  Modern  Hist. 


The  Renaissance  23 

a  strong  national  organization  under  the  rule  of  Philip  IV. 
Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  was  retarded  for  nearly  a 
hundred  years  on  account  of  the  religious  quarrels  which 
resulted  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  During  this  period 
many  new  schools  and  universities  were  built  all  over 
France.  We  owe  the  greatest  and  most  important  result 
of  the  Renaissance  to  France,  and  that  is  the  union  and  not 
the  antagonism  of  morality  and  culture.  From  the  union 
comes  a  higher  idea  of  morality  than  that  brought  by  com- 
pulsion. This  higher  morality  is  alone  suited  to  the  free 
mind  and  free  conscience  of  the  thinking  individual. 

Francesco  Petrarca  (1 304-1 341 ),  one  of  the  first  to  lead 
in  this  new  movement,  was  an  Italian,  yet  he  had  lived  in 
France  and  had  studied  the  people  and  had  become  inspired 
by  their  love  for  freedom.  Giovanni  Boccaccio  (1313- 
J375 ) a  Florentine  poet  and  statesman,  who  in  his  Decam- 
eron'' shows  great  enthusiasm  for  the  Renaissance,  was 
French  on  his  mother's  side.8  It  was  chiefly  her  inde- 
pendent way  of  thinking,  and  her  fine  sunny  temperament 
as  well  as  her  thirst  for  learning  that  gave  inspiration  to 
Boccaccio's  works.9     His  mother  kept  always  before  him 


/ 


7.  Chaucer  borrowed  many  of  the  plots  of  the  Canterbury 
Tales  from  the  Decameron,  and  through  Chaucer  and  other 
writers  Boccaccio  has  influenced  the  whole  world  of  latter 
English  literature.    Lodge,  p.  523. 

8.  The  claim  of  Boccaccio's  birthplace  being  Paris  has  been 
supposed  and  supported  by  Baldelli  and  Tiraboschi  mainly  on 
the  ground  that  his  mother  was  a  lady  of  good  family  in  that 
city  where  she  met  Boccaccio's   father.     Britannica  Encyclo- 

^  paedia,  volume  IV,  p.  102. 

9.  Boccaccio  was  a  great  lover  of  Greek  literature.  In  his 
Decameron  he  displays  a  contempt  for  superstition  and  nar- 
rowness in  religion  and  shows  a  vivid  delight  in  life  which 
cannot  be  found  in  the  literature  of  the  middle  ages, 


24         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

the  truly  beautiful,  and  placed  him  under  every  influence 
for  refinement  and  culture.  The  two  great  leaders  in  the 
Renaissance  were  Politianus  and  Victorious.  The  former 
taught  Latin  literature  in  Florence;  he  wrote  Latin  verse 
with  exquisite  beauty  of  expression  and  was  noted  for 
strength  and  originality  of  style.  The  latter  was  one  of 
the  greatest  philologists  and  critics  of  his  time.  As  these 
leaders  were  Italians,  we  must  credit  Italy  with  the  be- 
ginning of  the  new  learning.  France10  being  so  closely  re- 
lated to  her  in  commerce  and  trade  naturally  caught  the 
very  first  breath  of  the  Renaissance  and  was  the  one  to 
carry  it  to  Germany,  England  and  Spain.  The  Renais- 
sance which  has  been  termed  a  love  for  the  things  of  the 
intellect  and  the  imagination  for  their  own  sake,  was  es- 
pecially taken  up  by  the  French  with  enthusiasm.  They 
have  ever  displayed  a  vivid  imagination  and  a  great  zeal 
for  high,  intellectual  things. 

In  the  period  of  the  Renaissance  we  may  mention  Ra- 
belais, famous  for  his  wonderful  mastery  of  the  French 
language.  He  used  an  immense  vocabulary  to  which  he 
added  a  large  contribution  of  technical  terms  of  all  arts 
and  sciences.  It  is  said  of  him  that  he  used  words  derived 
from  the  Greek  and  Latin  and  all  the  dialects  then  spoken 
in  France.  His  two  famous  works  are  (jargantua  and 
Pantagruel  which  were  read  in  many  countries  and  pro- 


Boccaccio  was  in  France,  and  the  youthful  impressions 
which  he  received  in  Paris,  as  well  as  the  knowledge  of  French 
were  of  considerable  influence  in  his  later  career.  See  En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica  under  Boccaccio. 

10.  We  have  now  to  speak  of  France  which  was  the  first 
to  absorb  the  influence  of  the  Italian  revival.  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,  Vol.  XXIII,  p.  90. 


The  Renaissance  25 

duced  a  great  effect  on  Germany.  Rabelais  was  a  genius 
and  a  true  representative  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived, 
and  as  such  he  came  to  be  read  and  studied  by  other  na- 
tions. A  literary  critic  has  said  of  him  that  to  know 
Rabelais  was  to  know  what  the  sixteenth  century  was 
thinking  and  talking  about.  He  had  a  great  intellect  and 
was  very  humorous  and  witty.  He  possessed  that  satirical 
esprit  gaulois  which  the  French  claim  to  have  to  a  great 
extent.  Rabelais  was  well  versed  in  the  classics  of  Latin 
and  Greek  and  also  in  the  modern  Italian  writers.11 

In  Germany,  Fischart,  who  at  once  recognized  the  merit 
of  Rabelais's  Gargantua  made  a  deep  study  of  it,  and  then 
wrote  a  paraphrase  of  it.  Fischart  also  had  a  fine  vocabu- 
lary and  imitated  Rabelais  very  well  in  his  descriptive 
style.  In  order  to  see  the  difference  clearly  between  the 
Gargantua  of  Rabelais  and  Fischart's  imitation  of  it,  we 
will  quote  Francke's  German  Literature:  "Where  Rabelais 
is  grotesque,  Fischart  is  absurd ;  where  Rabelais  paints 
with  a  pencil,  Fischart  paints  with  a  broom ;  where  Rabe- 
lais has  one  illustration,  the  German  has  ten."  Then  he 
goes  on  to  say  that  Fischart  lacks  in  power  to  select.  Yet 
with  all  the  defects  of  Fischart's  imitation,  he  nevertheless 
did  a  great  work,  for  he  brought  Rabelais's  Gargantua  be- 
fore the  German  people,  and  made  them  know  it  as  they 
would  not  have  known  it  without  him.  Scholars  who  read 
the  Gargantua  naturally  wanted  to  read  the  Paraphrase, 
and  those  who  read  the  Paraphrase  wanted  to  read  the 
Gargantua,  and  so  they  set  themselves  to  work  to  learn  the 
French  language  with  more  zeal  than  they  had  ever  done 


11.     Dante  in  his  Divine  Comedy  was  the  first  to  give  liter- 
ary form  to  verse  in  a  modern  tongue. 


26         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

before. 

Ronsard,  the  great  French  poet,  in  his  renewed  style  of 
poetry  was  immensely  admired  by  Opitz  who  imitated 
him  closely.12  Ronsard  believed  that  poetry  should  not 
deviate  from  certain  fixed  rules  of  form ;  such  for  instance 
as  the  Alexandrian  verse.  Opitz  who  thought  Ronsard 
absolutely  correct,  now  followed  him  and  so  introduced 
this  style  into  Germany ;  and  the  minor  poets,  in  their  turn 
followed  him.  That  Ronsard  was  deeply  impressed  with 
the  idea  of  the  Renaissance,  we  see  from  the  fact  that  when 
he  wrote  Defense  et  Illustration  de  la  langue  francaise,  he 
brought  out  in  it  that  the  perfection  of  French  poetry 
could  be  attained  only  by  the  imitation  of  the  Latin  and 
the  Greek  classics.  The  seven  literary  stars  of  which  Ron- 
sard was  the  leader  then  made  a  code  of  rules  for  poetry. 
By  these  rules,  poetry  should  be  measured ;  that  is,  good 
French  poetry  must  come  up  to  the  rules  set  by  these  men. 
Opitz  was  considered  the  leader  of  poetic  taste  in  Germany 
and,  as  he  made  their  style  his  pattern,  he  introduced  their 
style  into  Germany. 

Malherbe,  who  is  called  the  father  of  perfect  French 
poetry  is  one  of  the  most  important  leaders  of  this  period. 
The  French  called  him  the  "Reformateur  du  Parnasse 
francais."  Malherbe  had  such  confidence  in  himself  that 
he  convinced  others  that  he  was  right.  He  loved  literary 
discussions,  and  would  most  boldly  declare  that  to  be 
right,  or  this  to  be  wrong.  He  claimed  to  be  a  master  on 
questions  of  grammar,  literature,  and  versification.     No 


12.  Opitz  filhrte  nach  dem  Vorgange  der  Franzosen  den 
eintdnigen  Alexandriner  ein.  Kluge's  Geschichte  der  deutschen 
National-Literatur,  p.  90. 


The  Renaissance  27 

doubt  the  main  reason  that  his  poetry  is  called  perfect  is 
that  he  is  the  first  to  keep  up  a  sustained  dignity  of  style 
all  through  his  poems.  He  is  extremely  accurate  in  rhyme, 
lofty  in  his  poetic  taste,  and  keeps  the  style  in  harmony 
with  the  thought.  This  is  why  the  poetry  in  France  be- 
came fixed,  at  least  as  to  style,  through  him.  This  is  what 
Boileau  says  of  him: 

Enfin  Malherbe  vint,  et,  le  en  France, 
D'un  mot  mis  en  place  enseigna  le  pouvoir, 
Et  reduisit  la  muse  aux  regies  du  devoir. 
Par  ce  sage  ecrivain  la  langue  reparee, 
N'offrit  plus  rien  de  rude  a  I'oreille  epuree 
Les  stances  avec  grace,  apprirent  a  tomber, 
Et  le  vers  sur  le  vers  n'osa  plus  enjamber. 

He  preferred  to  write  a  sentence  twenty  times  rather 
than  to  leave  it  imperfect  to  his  excellent  taste.  The 
story  is  told  of  him  that  he  wanted  to  write  a  letter  of 
condolence  to  a  dear  friend  who  had  lost  his  wife,  but  it 
took  him  so  long  to  obtain  the  wished-for  elegance  of  style 
that  his  friend  had  again  married  and  so  was  no  longer  in 
need  of  the  condolence.  He  was  great  as  a  lyric  poet  but 
still  greater  as  a  writer  of  odes.  He  was  lofty  and  ideal 
in  thought  and  deep  in  feeling.  This  may  be  seen  in 
Stances  a  du  Perrier  sur  la  mort  de  sa  fille. 

French  was  commonly  read  in  Germany  and  in  England 
at  this  time,  although  Italian  was  not  read.  It  was,  there- 
fore, through  the  French  masterpieces  that  the  spirit  of 
the  Renaissance  was  carried  into  the  other  countries.  The 
German  and  English  poets  carefully  studied  the  style  set 
by  these  great  masters  and  they  too  became  embued  with 
the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance.    We  must  also  mention  Cal- 


28         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

vin  who  wrote  in  Latin  but  also  a  great  deal  in  French. 
His  works  were  ardently  studied  in  Germany  because  of 
his  views  on  religion.  One  of  his  greatest  works  is  IS  in- 
stitution Cretienne.  This  is  a  skilful  and  eloquent  plea 
for  the  doctrine  of  the  Reformation.    His  style  is  so  clear, 

energetic,  and  at  the  same  time  so  noble  that  no  prose  writ- 
er of  his  time  surpassed  him,  unless  it  was  Rabelais.  At 
this  time,  the  influence  of  French  Literature  was  very  great 
as  France  was  then  considered  the  best  place  for  scholars 
to  meet.  Men  of  learning  flocked  there  from  all  countries. 
Schools  and  colleges  were  being  built  everywhere.  The 
great  and  learned  scholars  met  in  palace  halls  and  private 
parlours  to  discuss  the  great  questions  of  the  new  learning. 
The  College  de  France,  established  by  Francis  I  in  1530, 
offered  shelter  and  protection  to  many  great  and  earnest 
scholars,  who  thus  meeting  together  in  the  common  inter- 
ests of  a  liberal  education  formed  the  French  School  of 
Classical  Philosophy.  This  school  was  noted  everywhere 
for  its  clear  and  accurate  criticism,  and  its  extensive  ency- 
clopaedic knowledge.  There  were  men  from  all  over  the 
world  there  who  discussed  questions  of  learning.  Among 
the  French,  we  may  note  Adrien  Turnabe,  the  greatest 
Greek  scholar  of  his  time;  Denis  Lambin,  Director  of  the 
Royal  Printing  Establishment;  Bernard  de  Montfaucon, 
who  was  the  founder  of  scientific  Palaeography;  Mark  An- 
toine  Muret,  who  was  one  of  the  greatest  stylists  ever 
known ;  and  Isaac  Causabon,  who  was  one  of  the  greatest 
scholars  of  his  time.  Who  can  measure  the  influence  of 
the  thoughts  and  writings  of  a  school  of  such  men  upon 
Europe?  Causabon  was  Professor  of  Greek  at  Geneva 
where  he  met  many  of  the  greatest  German  scholars.  Later 


The  Renaissance  29 

he  went  to  England  where  he  wielded  an  unequaled  influ- 
ence through  his  theological  and  classical  scholarship.  He 
wrote  many  works  on  ecclesiastical  freedom,  among  them 
his  great  work  Exercitationes  Contra  Baronium.  King 
James  I  was  very  fond  of  him  and  made  him  "great  in  court 
circles.  DuCange's  books  were  collected  by  the  govern- 
ment and  put  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  in  Paris  where 
scholars  may  now  see  and  consult  them.  Bernard  Mont- 
fancon  has  done  a  real  and  lasting  service  to  the  world  by 
his  works  on  archaeology.  The  effect  of  the  culture  and 
refinement  of  these  scholars,  who  met  at  this  school  went 
out  into  all  parts  of  the  world.  Then  we  must  certainly 
mention  Causabon,  Justus  Lipsius,  and  Joseph  Scalinger 
who  were  called  the  Triumvirate  because  intellectually 
they  towered  above  all  their  contemporaries.  It  was  in  the 
year  of  1855,  that  Jacob  Bernys  of  Berlin  and  Mark  Pat- 
tison  of  Oxford  made  a  close  study  of  Scalinger  and  thus 
propagated  French  thought  and  culture  in  two  countries 
at  the  same  time.  It  is  of  great  importance  to  note  that  the 
two  countries  are,  at  the  same  time,  interested  in  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  French  school  of  two  centuries  before,  and 
should  now  seriously  study  the  French  masters. 

Desiderius  Erasmus,13  though  Dutch  by  birth,  was 
reared  in  France  and  educated  there.  It  was  he  who  was 
to  interpret  the  great  intellectual  movement  of  the  Renais- 
sance to  the  great  thinkers  of  the  northern  part  of  Europe. 
This  great  scholar  and  leader  among  the  intellectual  men 
was  a  master  of  Latin  and  many  other  languages.  He  was 
one  of  the  greatest  humanists  of  his  time,  and  was  the 


13.    Erasmus,  1466-1536. 


30         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

representative  of  humanism.  Erasmus  made  it  his  task  to 
unite  Southern  culture  to  Northern  strength  and  energy, 
and  to  give  education  such  a  high  place  in  the  minds  of 
right-thinking  men  and  women  that  all  great  and  learned 
people  could  come  together  without  any  passport  other 
than  the  cachet  of  a  thorough  education. 

Erasmus  wielded  a  great  influence  over  England.  He 
visited  Oxford  and  met  there  many  great  men  of  culture, 
whom  he  inspired  with  his  ideas  on  the  new  Learning. 
He  preferred  the  University  of  Paris,  however,  and  re- 
turned there  to  write  and  to  study.  Here  he  made  a  para- 
phrase of  the  New  Testament,  which  was  received  in  Eng- 
land with  much  applause.  A  translation  was  made  in 
1548  and  ordered  to  be  placed  in  all  parish  churches  be- 
side the  Bible.  His  correspondence  is  of  most  permanent 
value.  There  are  three  thousand  letters  which  are  a  series 
of  dialogues,  written  first  for  pupils  in  the  early  Paris 
days  as  formulas  for  polite  address  and  conversation. 
These  letters  were  read  in  schools  as  forms  of  correct 
French.14  John  Colet  at  Oxford  was  eager  to  introduce 
as  many  of  Erasmus's  works  as  possible,  since  he  so  much 
admired  him  as  a  scholar.15  In  this  way  his  books  were 
either  read  in  French  or  translated  into  English. 


14.  Encyclopaedia  Britanica,  Vol.  IX,  p.  732. 

15.  In  1495  Erasmus  entered  Paris  University,  where  he 
studied  many  years.  He  then  went  to  Oxford,  but  soon  re- 
turned because  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the  English  schools. 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  Volume  IX. 


CHAPTER  III 

Third  Period 
Seventeenth  Century 

JUST  as  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  the 
freedom  and  fervour  of  the  Renaissance  of  France 
spread  through  Germany,  England,  and  Spain,  so,  in  the 
seventeenth  century  absolutism  was  broken  up,  and  a  new 
and  all  absorbing  thought  was  introduced.  It  was  the 
idea  of  special  attention  to  style.  We  already  have  seen 
that  perfection  of  style  was  started  in  the  last  century,  and 
that  Malherbe  was  the  father  of  perfect  poetry.  This  per- 
fection of  style  was  sought  after  earnestly  at  the  time. 
Germany,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  Europe,  now  adopted  the 
French  way  of  putting  together  high-sounding  words 
merely  to  please  idle  courtiers  and  arbitrary  princes.  The 
seventeenth  century  marks  the  foundation  of  the  French 
Academy  which  was  but  a  year  before  the  publication  of 
Corneille's  Cid.1  The  passionate  tragedy  had  a  marked 
effect  upon  the  court  society,  and  affected  the  German 
theatre  at  Hamburg.     The  French  tragedy  was  greatly 


I.  "As  had  been  her  lot  in  the  thirteenth  century  so  now 
again  in  the  seventeenth  France  was  unanimously  acclaimed  the 
intellectual  sovereign  of  Europe ;  all  eyes  being  turned  towards 
her,  and  all  ears  listening  for  her  action.  The  predominant 
influence  of  French  literature  is  everywhere  perceptible ;  for  a 
while  its  prestige  blocked  the  way  and  arrested  the  action  of 
every  individual  impulse,  every  national  movement,  in  the  lit- 
erary history  of  every  nation."  Cambridge's  Modem  History, 
Vol.  V,  p.  70. 

31 


32         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

admired  and  ardently  sought  after  by  the  Germans  until 
Lessing's  time.     He  introduced  the  German  theatre. 

The  Academy  advanced  scholasticism  which  is  import- 
ant to  note,  as  it  was  in  France  that  this  movement  began, 
and  where  it  found  its  greatest  growth  ancLdevelopment. 
The  early  history  of  scholasticism  is  the  gradual  growth 
of  learning  in  Europe  after  the  Dark  Ages.  It  began  with 
Alcuin  and  the  Palace  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great. 
Many  of  the  leaders  in  this  movement  were  foreigners, 
and  yet  because  of  the  leadership  of  France  in  thought 
and  the  renown  of  its  university,  most  foreigners  settled 
there.  The  works  of  these  men  so  characteristically 
French  naturally  helped  spread  the  influence  of  scholasti- 
cism in  their  countries  more  rapidly  than  would  have  been 
the  case  without  the  foreigners.  Through  the  period  of 
the  Renaissance,  Humanism  was  emphasized.  Through  the 
seventeenth  century  a  new  Humanism  became  very  promi- 
nent. Rationalism  as  well  as  Humanism2  can  be  traced 
to  the  early  schools  of  the  French.3 


2.  Under  Humanism  in  France,  in  the  Britannica  we  find : 
"While  the  necessities  of  antagonism  to  papal  Rome  made  it 
assume  at  first  the  form  of  narrow  and  sectarian  opposition, 
it  marked  in  fact  a  struggle  of  the  intellect  towards  truth  and 
freedom,  involving  future  results  of  scepticism  and  rationalis- 
tic audacity  from  which  its  earlier  champions  shrank."  Encyclo. 
Brit,  under  Humanism. 

3.  Alcuin  one  of  the  first  humanists  was  teaching  in  the 
school  of  Charles  the  Great.  "Charles  the  Great  caused  a 
scheme  of  humanistic  education  to  be  formulated  and  gave  em- 
ployment at  his  court  to  rhetoricians,  of  whom  Alcuin  was  the 
most  considerable."  Encyclopaedia  Brit,  Vol.  23.  Johannes 
Scotus,  or  Erigena,  the  first  noteworthy  philosopher  of  the 
Scholastic  period,  was  Scotch  by  nationality  but  was  called  to 
France  by  Charles  the  Bald.  Ueberweg's  Hist,  of  Philosophy, 
Vol.  I,  p.  358. 


Seventeenth  Century  33 

Descartes  and  Voltaire,  and  even  long  before  them, 
Erasmus  took  up  this  movement  in  France,  and  brought 
the  effect  of  this  new  learning  to  bear  especially  on  Ger- 
many and  England.  Rationalism  was  an  attempt  to  carry 
out  by  means  of  natural  sciences  what  Humanism  had  be- 
gun in  its  way  through  literature.  It  was  a  thorough  ex- 
amination of  the  outer  and  inner  world  before  the  high 
tribunal  of  reason,  die  reine  Vernunft.  It  led  man  to  seek 
a  real  understanding  of  the  universe.  It  was  the  cause  of 
the  intellectual  scepticism  of  Voltaire  and  the  Encyclo- 
paedists. This  movement  greatly  affected  the  intellectual 
and  thinking  people  of  Germany,  where  it  became  the  pre- 
vailing form  of  thought  in  the  German  universities  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  Erasmus  had  followed  the  philosophy 
of  the  ancients,  and  had  studied  their  writings  and  teach- 
ings closely ;  he  had  found  reason  in  Plato. 

Descartes  found  it  in  one  self-evident  proposition,  the 
analytic  judgment,  which  is  already  in  the  mind  of  man 
himself  and  which  places  the  construction  of  the  whole  in- 
ternal and  external  world  upon  a  firm  basis.  Descartes 
accepted  all  authority  for  truth  from  the  statement,  "I 
think,  therefore  I  am."  Thus  Descartes  left  the  philoso- 
phy of  the  ancients  and  introduced  a  new  philosophy.  He 
also  gave  us  a  new  physical  interpretation  of  the  world  and 
systematized  thought.  Wright  said  that  the  character  of 
this  new  learning  is  la  recherche  et  I' expression  de  la  verite. 
Imagination  becomes  auxiliary  to  reason.  His  chief  works 
are:  Discours  de  la  Methode,4  Les  Meditationes  de  prima 


4.  "Sans  les  mesures  de  M.  Picard,  jamais  Newton  n'eut 
fait  ses  dicouvertes  sur  I' aatr action."  Voltaire's  Letter  to  Mil- 
ord Hervey,  p.  78. 


34  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

philosophia,  Principia  philosophiae,  and  Traite  des  passion 
de  Vame.  Descartes  may  be  said  to  be  the  father  of  mod- 
ern philosophy,  and  certainly  later  writers  of  philosophy 
were  influenced  by  him.  "Even  Newton,5  to  whom  the 
science  of  the  eighteenth  century  looked  up,  might  not  have 
developed,  as  he  did,  his  mathematical  discoveries  concern- 
ing the  universe,  without  the  mechanism  of  Descartes's 
cosmology." — Wright's  History  of  French  Literature,  p. 

323. 

Descartes's  great  work  LeMonde  was  not  printed.    "By 

1633,  Descartes  had  completed  a  work  of  the  amplest  scope 
and  pretentions.  It  was  of  an  evolutionary  character. 
'Give  me  space  and  movement,'  he  proclaimed,  'and  I  will 
construct  the  Universe.'  He  asked  only  for  space  and 
movement  because  he  regarded  matter  as  being  virtually 
identical  with  space,  since  it  possessed  no  essential  property 
except  that  of  extension.  From  a  boundless  chaos,  en- 
dowed with  a  fixed  quantity  of  movement,  the  world  was 
accordingly  to  spring,  the  manner  of  distribution  of  the 
movement  prescribing  the  fashion  of  its  growth.  The  hy- 
pothesis, it  is  true,  was  crude  in  its  conception  and  struc- 
turally unsound,  yet  it  marked  the  beginning  of  scientific 
cosmogony.  No  occult  influences  or  ambushed  phantoms 
were  tolerated  in  it ;  it  gave  the  coup  de  grace  to  the  ob- 
scurely sentient  world-soul  of  the  Platonic  cosmos.  The 
agencies  which  it  invoked  were  of  a  frankly  mechanical 
nature.  Their  action  was  indeed  designed,  but  the  plan 
of  preparations  had  been  laid  down  once  for  all  in 
the   dark   abysm   of   time.      And   the   plan   was   assumed 


5.     "Few  books  deserve  better  than  this  one  to  be  called 
'epoch-making.' "  Edinburgh  Review,  Vol.  204,  p.  167. 


Seventeenth  Century  35 

to  have  been  wrought  out  according  to  laws  intelligible  to 
human  reason.  In  its  original  shape,  the  Cartesian  Mone 
never  saw  the  light.  Just  as  he  was  about  to  send  it  to 
press,  the  author  was  thunderstruck  by  the  intelligence 
that  Galileo  had  been  condemned  at  Rome  for  promulgat- 
ing views  which  he  had  adopted  as  unquestionably  true. 
Because  of  his  loyalty  to  the  Universal  Church,  he  sup- 
pressed the  treatise  in  which  he  had  embodied  what  he  held 
to  be  a  momentous  message  to  mankind,  and  made  his 
debut  as  an  author  with  the  famous  Discours  de  la  Meth- 
ode  printed  at  Leiden  in  1637."  Edinburgh  Review,  vol. 
204,  p.  167. 

The  philosophy  of  Descartes  was  taught  in  the  Ger- 
man universities  about  a  century  later.  Many  of  Des- 
cartes's  works  could  not  be  printed  in  France  as  he  had 
to  have  the  imprimateur  of  the  king.  Therefore,  much 
that  the  king  did  not  wish  to  have  published  and  which  he 
intended  to  suppress  by  not  giving  his  signature  to  it,  was 
taken  to  Holland  and  Germany  and  printed  there.  In 
this  way  much  of  the  best  in  literature  was  sent  to  Ger- 
many, and  still  more  to  Holland.  Many  great  men  went 
to  foreign  lands  to  live.  This  may  account  for  the  many 
French  family  names  we  find  in  Germany  and  England  to 
this  day.  Thus  French  influence  spread  rapidly,  and  the 
great  works  of  Descartes  were  scattered  farther  and 
farther.  Here  we  learn,  too,  that  suppression  does  not 
suppress.  Just  as  a  hurricane  takes  up  the  good  seed  and 
scatters  it  far  and  wide,  so  the  very  choicest  literature  in 
France  was  scattered  over  many  countries  because  of  the 
intention  to  suppress  it.  Whatever  is  great  and  good  can- 
not be  suppressed,  but  will,  in  its  own  time,  bear  tenfold 
fruit. 


36  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

The  influence  of  Descartes  was  not  only  on  Germany 
and  Holland,  but  was  also  strongly  felt  in  Sweden.  Queen 
Christina  persuaded  him  to  come  to  Stockholm  where  he 
spent  much  time  discussing  Rationalism  at  the  court.  He 
believed  in  perfect  freedom  of  reason,  maintained  that  no 
one  should  accept  a  statement  as  true  unless  he  knew  it  to 
be  true  or  could  prove  it  to  be  true.  He  wanted  to  place 
knowledge  on  a  firm  foundation  and  to  broaden  its  scope. 
He  created  the  dogmatism  of  a  general  impersonal  Reason. 

Victor  Cousin  said  of  Descartes.  "77  ny  a  point  de 
chimeres  dans  Descartes.  II  se  trompe  souvent,  mats  il  ne 
reve  jamais."  Cousin's  History  of  Philosophy,  p.  405. 

Pascal,  who  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Jansenest 
prose  writers,  also  greatly  influenced  the  literature  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  It  is  said  that  his  many-sided  intel- 
lect touched  almost  every  phase  of  the  life  of  this  century. 
He  had  a  great  mind  for  mathematical  studies  and  made 
profound  discoveries  therein,  and  also  carried  on  great 
scientific  investigations.  His  Lettres  provinciates  play  an 
important  role  in  the  history  of  Jansenism.  These  letters 
were  full  of  sharpest  and  bitterest  satire  against  the 
Jesuits.  The  Pensees  the  summing  up  of  Pascal's  thoughts 
is  one  of  the  masterpieces  of  French  literature.  This  great 
work  on  religion  produced  a  great  effect  on  Lessing  and 
though  he  differed  in  his  views  on  that  subject  on  many 
points,  yet  in  his  Good  Templar  in  Nathan  der  Weise6  we 


6.  "On  recommit  a  chaque  page  le  libre  et  sincere  essor 
d'unc  grande  dme  vers  Dieu,  et  Von  suit  I'ecrivain  avec  une 
anxiete  pleine  de  terreur  a  travers  ce  long  drame  religieux. 
C'est  par  lame  que  Pascal  est  grand  comme  homme  et  comme 
ecrivain,  .  .  .  et  son  styleest,  comme  son  ante,  d'une 
beaute  incomparable."  Helene  Lange,  History  of  French  Liter- 
ture,  p.  39,  i       1      .UKjJay 


Seventeenth  Century  37 

find  many  thoughts  of  Pascal  carried  out  in  his  style.  His 
work  Nouvelles  Experiences  touchant  le  Vide  was  an  ana- 
thema to  the  Jesuits  who  preferred  to  stand  by  the  old  idea 
that  Nature  abhors  a  vacuum  rather  than  Pascal's  new 
idea  and  scientific  explanations.  Scientists  in  general  be- 
came all  the  more  interested  in  Pascal's  new  ideas. 

In  his  work  on  religion  he  leaves  form  behind  and  seeks 
a  pure  and  exalted  devotion  of  the  soul  to  God.7  Des- 
cartes's  and  Ronsard's  works  especially  influenced  Ger- 
many at  this  period.  Opitz  and  Gottsched  were  the  dic- 
tators of  literary  taste  in  Germany  and  both  were  entirely 
under  the  influence  of  the  masters  of  French  literature.8 
In  the  seventeenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
centuries,  these  two  leaders  as  well  as  their  contemporaries 
steeped  their  very  souls  in  the  French  writings  both  prose 
and  poetry.  Whatever  the  French  wrote  was  supposed  to 
be  absolutely  perfect  both  in  style  and  form.  Opitz  (1597- 
1639)  advocated  the  direct  imitation  of  the  French  writ- 
ers of  his  time.     He  adopted  the  Alexandrian  verse  which 


7.  In  Nathan  der  Weise  we  find  the  same  thought  that  it  is 
not  doctrine  nor  church,  bui?  the  truly  noble  and  pure  in  man's 
soul  that  is  acceptable  unto  God  and  unto  men  of  high  ideals. 
Let  us  quote  from  Nathan  der  Weise: 

Nathan:  "Was  heisct  denn  Volk?  Sind  Christ  und  Jude 
eher  Christ  und  Jude  als  Mensch?  Ah!  wenn  ich  einen  mehr  in 
Euch  gefunden  h'dtte,  denies  g'niit  ein  Mensch  zu  lieiszen!" 

Tcmpclhcrr:  "Ja,  bci  Gott,  das  habt  Ihr,  .  .  .  Eure 
Hand.'  Ich  sch'dme  mich,  Euch  einen  Augenblick  verkannt  su 
haben." 

Nathan:  "Und  ich  bin  stab  darauf.  Nur  das  Gemeine  ver- 
kennt  man  self  en." 

Tcmpclhcrr:  "Und  das  Seltcnc  vergiszt  man  schwerlich." — 
Lessing's  Nathan. 

8.  See  Wilhelm  Scherer's  History  of  German  Literature, 
Under  Opitz  and  also  Gottsched. 


38  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

was  then  in  vogue.  He  studied  the  French  models  care- 
fully, but  the  trouble  was  that  Opitz,  in  attempting  to 
write  for  German  people,  could  not  reach  their  views  nor 
tastes  by  the  French  way.  The  French  being  a  flowery 
language  in  itself  was  suited  to  such  elegance  of  style  and 
expression  as  the  German  people  could  neither  reach  nor 
appreciate.  Gottsched  did  the  same  thing;  he  also  forced 
his  writings  into  the  trim  and  elegant  style  of  the  French 
and  followed  the  French  models  closely.  Both  lack  sadly 
the  ease  and  elegance  so  innate  to  the  French  mind  and  so 
conspicuous  in  the  French  versification  and  even  of  the 
prose  of  that  time.9  Yet,  like  children,  the  people  of  other 
nations  craved  what  was  not  theirs  by  nature. 

This  elegance  was  so  much  sought  after  and  admired  by 
the  Germans  that  the  French  literature  became  the  one  all- 
absorbing  theme  of  the  writers  of  that  time.  Every  one 
who  considered  himself  a  writer  at  all  now  set  himself  to 
learning  French  thoroughly,  and  read  zealously  everything 
he  could  get  hold  of.  He  fairly  steeped  his  soul  and  brains 
in  the  French  literature.  In  this  way  the  French  litera- 
ture wielded  an  all  overpowering  influence  over  Germany. 
Under  this  influence  the  German  attained  to  something  of 
a  formal  respectability  as  to  form  which  at  that  time  was 


9.  "In  Germany  this  influence  lasted  for  a  century  .  .  . 
mention  must  be  made  of  Martin  Opitz,  who  following  the 
example  of  his  Dutch  master  Daniel  Heinsus,  had  imbibed 
the  leading  principles  of  French  literature  in  such  a  degree  as 
to  earn  for  himself  the  name  of  the  'German  Malherbe';  he 
was  pronounced  partisan  of  the  system  of  imitation,  and  far 
more  like  Ronsard  than  Malherbe,  he  strove  to  introduce  into 
the  literature  of  his  own  country  the  distinguishing  beauties 
of  every  other  literature."  The  Cambridge  Modern  History, 
Vol.  V,  p.  68. 


Seventeenth  Century  39 

counted  as  the  supreme  test  of  poetic  ability.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  while  the  French  polish  made  the  French  writ- 
ers popular  and  useful,  this  same  style  adopted  by  another 
people  and  for  another  people  was  not  a  success.  We 
soon  find  that  neither  Gottsched  nor  Opitz  show  much 
real  appreciation  for  the  true  spirit  of  poetry.  They  wan- 
dered from  the  truth  as  is  always  the  case  with  imitations. 
They  lost  what  little  originality  they  had  started  with. 
They  sacrificed  their  own  individuality  without  making  a 
success  of  the  one  they  were  trying  so  hard  to  adopt.  Lit- 
erature at  this  epoch  became  a  slave  to  aristocracy.  This 
was  the  aim  of  French  and  this  was  so  adopted  by  the 
rest  of  the  world.  With  these  men,  poetry  became  a  play 
with  empty  though  well-sounding  words, — beautiful  in 
form  but  lacking  in  spirit.  Both  of  them,  however, 
brought  much  that  was  valuable  from  the  French  into 
German.  Perhaps  that  which  was  of  the  greatest  value 
was,  that  the  Germans  in  studying  the  French  so  much, 
became  richer  in  thought  and  broader  in  their  views  of 
real  literary  value  and  poetic  merit. 

Gottsched  kept  ever  before  his  eyes  the  French  masters 
of  the  time  of  Louis  XIV  and  so  greatly  widened  the  hori- 
zon of  the  German  literature.  Opitz  somewhat  limited 
himself  to  Ronsard  and  his  contemporaries,  but  was  a  dis- 
ciple of  Horace  and  insisted  upon  the  imitation  of  nature 
as.  the  principal  idea  and  form  of  poetic  expression  and  thus 
brought  this  element  into  German.  This  element  was  well 
suited  to  the  naive  and  childlike  German  mind,  and  no 
doubt  helped  to  improve  their  poetry.  The  greatest  good, 
however,  may  have  come  from  the  inspiration  that  many 
a  minor  writer  got  from  reading  the  French.     The  cul- 


40         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

ture  derived  from  the  French  is  inestimably  great  as  every 
one  who  pretended  to  have  an  education  now  learned  to 
read  and  write  French.  At  this  time,  as  we  have  seen, 
France  was  especially  rich  in  the  classics,  and  so  all  edu- 
cated people  derived  the  benefit  and  the  refining  influence 
of  the  great  thoughts  and  the  lofty  ideals  of  these  writers. 

Latter  Half  of  the  Seventeenth  Century,  The  Golden  Age 

As  we  come  to  consider  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century  and  the  French  writers  who  wielded  an  immense 
influence  upon  other  countries,  we  come  indeed  to  the 
golden  age  of  the  French  literature,  and  to  the  time  when 
France  fairly  ruled  the  world.  Great  works  were  pro- 
duced for  the  comic  as  well,  and  for  the  tragic  stage.  Here 
we  find  Misanthrope,  Le  Tartuffe,  Iphigenie,  Atalie,  The 
Fables  of  Fontaine,  L 'Art  Poetic,  Le  Telemaque,  the  let- 
ters of  Mme.  Sevigne,  Oraisons  funebres  of  Boussuet,  and 
innumerable  others,  all  of  which  are  eternal  masterpieces, 
each  in  its  own  way. 

German,  English  and  Spanish  culture  demanded  that 
one  should  know  French  and  how  fitting  for  this  time! 
How  well  Germany,  especially,  was  now  prepared  to  ab- 
sorb all  the  good  produced  in  France.  Many  spoke  French 
as  easily  and  correctly  as  German,  and  some  even  pre- 
ferred it  to  their  own  language.  How  they  banqueted  in 
French  literature!  We  come  now  to  Moliere,  le  prince  des 
poetes  comiques,  as  the  French  people  love  to  call  him. 
He  is  certainly  one  of  the  writers  who  belong  to  all  the 
world  as  well  as  to  France,  because  he  has  painted  hu- 
manity in  such  a  manner  that  it  may  be  recognized  in  all 


Seventeenth  Century  41 

times  and  all  places. 

Moliere  in  his  Le  Misanthrope  criticises  the  society  of 
his  time.  In  his  Tartuffe,  he  paints  hypocrisy  in  reli- 
gion. In  these  we  see  that  he  is  not  only  a  comic  writer 
but  a  great  philosopher  as  well. 

Louis  XIV  was  a  friend  of  his  and  when  Philip  V, 
grandson  of  Louis  the  XIV,  came  to  be  sovereign  in  Spain, 
all  of  Spain  came  directly  under  the  influence  of  the 
French  masters  of  this  period. 

Moliere's  Ecole  des  Femmes  produced  a  literary  war 
and  caused  showers  of  paper  bullets  of  the  brain  to  fly  all 
over  Europe.  Who  can  measure  such  a  mind  set  into  mo- 
tion? Moliere  broke  away  from  the  artificial  haughtiness 
of  the  school  of  his  day.  Lessing  did  the  same  thing  a  lit- 
tle later,  and  although  he  wished  to  drive  the  French  from 
the  German  stage,  he,  nevertheless,  had  made  a  deep  study 
of  these  writers.  We  cannot  doubt  that  he  was  greatly 
influenced  by  Moliere's  idea  of  naturalness  in  writing,  for 
he  seems  to  follow  out  that  same  idea  in  his  criticisms  on 
the  Hamburg  literary  circles.  In  Moliere's  Les  Precieuses 
Ridicules,  we  recognize  an  attack  on  the  over-refinement 
and  affectation  of  the  original,  natural  manners  and  im- 
pulses of  the  society  of  the  Hotel  Rambuild,  then  a  school. 
He  advocated  naturalness  as  the  supreme  law  of  writ- 
ing, and  he  sincerely  hated  bombast,  pretention,  and  hy- 
pocrisy. He  was  the  first  to  turn  from  the  ideal  to  the 
realities  of  the  world. 

His  Tartuffe  was  very  much  admired  by  Goethe  and  no 
doubt  called  forth  many  of  his  realistic  views  in  his  Wil- 
helm  Meister's  Wander  und  Lehrjahre.  As  has  been  said 
of  Moliere  in  his  Tartuffe,  il  frappe  la  fausse  devotion  et 


42         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

I'hypocrisie;  so  we  also  find  the  same  irony  against  false 
religion  in  Goethe's  Lehrjahre.  We  also  see  a  strong  resem- 
blance between  the  hypocritic  and  crafty  Tartuffe  and  the 
world-wise  and  selfish  Jarno. 

Corneille's  great  works,  he  Cid,  Horace,  Cinna,  Polye- 
ucte,  Pompee,  Rodogune — Le  Menteur,  were  also  of  great 
importance  in  this  golden  age  of  literature.  It  was  in 
vain  that  the  minister  Richelieu  made  the  Academy  con- 
demn le  Cid,  for  it  nevertheless  met  with  universal  ap- 
plause. And  the  well  known  expression  beau  comme  le 
Cid  became  the  popular  remark  for  the  height  of  admira- 
tion for  anything  that  was  especially  beautiful  and  fine. 
We  might  also  quote  Boileau's  words  here  on  the  Cid  : 

En  vain  contre  le  Cid  un  minitre  se  ligne, 

Tout  Paris  pour  Chimene  a  les  yeux  de  Rodrigue. 

These  masterpieces  were  greatly  admired  by  the  Ger- 
mans, who  were  still  far  behind  in  drama. 

To  show  how  the  French  drama  led  in  advance  on  the 
stage,  let  us  quote  from  Francke's  History  of  German 
Literature.  "Nothing  shows  more  clearly  the  provincial 
narrowness  of  German  life  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  than  the  fact  that  at  the  same  time  when  Moliere's 
dramas  from  the  Paris  stage  were  speaking  to  the  whole 
civilized  world,  the  foremost  German  dramatist,  Wiese, 
saw  himself  confined  to  the  cloisterly  walls  of  the  Gymna- 
sium at  Zittam,  with  his  college  boys  as  actors,  and  their 
parents  and  patrons  as  spectators." 

At  the  end  of  this  period,  the  French  plays  of  Corneille, 
Moliere,  and  Racine  rushed  in  full  force  upon  the  Ger- 


Seventeenth  Century  43 

man  stage,  and  remained  there  until  Lessing  destroyed 
them  and  set  up  a  national  German  idea  of  theatre.  It 
was  in  1760  that  Lessing  appeared  along  the  literary  hori- 
zon, and  administered  such  a  mighty  blow  to  the  gout 
frangais  that  the  influence  of  French  on  German  literature 
almost  died  out. 

La  Fontaine,  so  charmingly  humorous,  met  with  the 
greatest  success  in  his  fables.  He  gives  a  pleasant  and 
graceful  air  to  all  subjects,  even  the  most  serious  ones. 
La  Fontaine  was  not  only  an  admirable  painter  of  the  na- 
ture and  the  world  of  animals,  but  also  showed  a  pro- 
found understanding  of  the  human  heart  and  character. 
Everything  his  characters  do  and  say  in  these  little  animal 
dramas  are  true  to  human  nature  and  take  their  source 
from  human  character.  In  them  we  find  the  most  natural 
things  for  humans  to  do  and  say,  and  think.  His  style  is 
admirably  naive  and  simple.  He  is  acquainted  with  nature 
at  first  hand  and  gives  it  to  us  in  the  same  way.  With 
the  exception  of  Moliere,  he  is  said  to  be  the  least  con- 
ventional writer  of  the  classical  school. 

He  was  so  naive  that  he  quite  suited  the  German  tem- 
perament and  they  studied  him  closely.  La  Fontaine  is 
the  father  of  the  German  fabulists.10  He  was  a  true  lover 
of  nature  and  he  understood  more  about  all  trees  and 
flowers  than  all  the  learned  courtiers  of  Louis  XIV  with 
all  their  conventionalities  and  learning.  La  Fontaine 
saw  lessons  for  men  in  animals.     He  said,  "Je  me  serv 


10.  "And,  for  a  moment  we  feel  impelled  to  call  from  obliv- 
ion the  worthy  and  gentil  Fabulist  Gellert  who  derived  al- 
most as  much  inspiration  from  La  Fontaine  as  from  his  own 
kindlv  nature."  The  Cambridge  Modem  History,  Vol.  V, 
p.  68. 


44  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

d'  animaux  pour  instruir  a  les  hommes."  No  doubt 
La  Fontaine,  like  Boileau,  was  a  satirist,  who  by  means 
of  his  fables,  intended  to  attack  the  men  of  his  time. 
Certainly  his  animals  do  act  like  the  men  of  his  time, 
whether  this  was  LaFontaine's  intention  or  not.  But 
men  of  his  time  were  much  as  men  are  now ;  that  is,  hu- 
man nature  does  not  change  much  and  if  it  be  a  satire,  it 
fits  for  all  nations  and  all  times,  at  least  in  the  main 
points.  That  La  Fontaine  was  read  and  loved  by  Ger- 
mans is  a  well  known  fact.  That  the  German  fabulists 
made  him  their  direct  pattern  is  evident  from  the  close  re- 
semblance of  their  stories  to  his  in  matter,  form,  and  style. 
The  influence  of  these  stories  on  the  literature  of  other 
countries  also  has  been  very  great. 

La  Fontaine's  Fables11  are  full  of  charming  simplicity 
such  as  the  child  loves.  The  stories  are  fresh  and  vivid 
and  hold  his  attention  to  the  last.  The  art  with  which 
these  stories  are  told  is  of  the  greatest  interest  to  the  earn- 
est student  of  literature,  while  the  philosopher  admires 
the  subtle  satire  and  the  keen  reflections  on  human  inter- 
ests and  character  which  are  so  wonderfully  portrayed 
there. 

Fenelon,  who  was  entrusted  with  missionary  work  in 
the  Southwest,  was  a  marvelous  teacher  who  attracted  his 
pupils  to  him  and  who  was  loved  beyond  all  measure  by 
them.     It  was  for  an  educational  purpose  he  wrote  his 

ii.  The  book,  that  is  LaFontaine's  Fables,  "has  naturally 
become  the  standard  reading  book  of  French,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  a  position  which  it  shares  on  verse  with  the  Tele- 
maque  of  Fenelon  in  prose.  It  is  no  small  testimony  to  its 
merit  that  not  even  this  use  or  misuse  has  interfered  with  its 
popularity."    Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  Vol.  16,  p.  71. 


Seventeenth  Century  4.5 

chief  literary  work  the  Telcmaque.  It  was  intended  es- 
pecially for  his  pupil,  the  duke  of  Bourgogne.  His  Tele- 
maque  was  translated  and  read  in  all  Germany.  His  most 
important  work  relating  to  women  is  the  Traite  de  {'edu- 
cation des  filles.12  This  book  was  read  by  all  young  girls 
in  Germany  as  well  as  in  France.  Fenelon's  idea  was  that 
the  women  of  his  time  were  not  well  brought  up.  He 
scorned  the  affectation  of  bel  esprit  but  also  did  not  ad- 
mire the  really  serious,  that  is  the  higher  learning,  in  wo- 
men. He  advocated,  that  a  girl  should  be  educated  for 
her  mission  in  life,  that  is, — to  be  a  good  wife  and  house- 
keeper. Fenelon  says  in  his  Telemaque,  "Antiope  est 
douce,  simple  et  sage"  (Atiope  is  sweet,  simple  and  wise. 
Her  hands  do  not  disdain  labor,  she  knows  how  to  be 
silent,  and  how  to  act  quickly  and  yet  without  hurry; 
she  is  always  occupied  and  is  never  embarrassed  because 
everything  is  as  it  should  be  and  in  its  right  place.  The 
good  order  of  the  house  of  her  father  is  her  glory.  She 
has  many  other  attractions  besides  that  of  beauty, 
etc.)  Hence  Fenelon's  ideas  were  naturally  appreciated 
by  all  Europe  and  every  girl  whether  she  knew  French 
or  not  must  read  his  books  and  so  they  produced  a  great 
effect  not  only  upon  the  individual  but  also  upon  the 
girls'  schools.13 


12.  "La  Fontaine  se  mit,  par  les  choses  les  plus  simples, 
presque  a  cote  des  hommes  sublimes  de  son  siecle."  Helene 
Lange's  History  of  French  Literature. 

13.  "Fenelon's  Treatise  on  the  education  of  girls,  was  the 
first  systematic  attempt  ever  made  to  deal  with  that  subject  as 
a  whole,  and  hence  it  was  probably  the  most  influential  of  all 
Fenelon's  books,  and  guided  French  ideas  on  that  question  all 
through  the  eighteenth  century."  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  p. 
7,  Vol.  XVI. 


46  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

Boileau  expounded  the  theory  of  poetry  and  hy  his  coun- 
trymen he  was  called  the  legislateur  du  Parnasse,  The 
classic  school  deemed  his  style  full  of  "dignity,  measure, 
reason  and  taste."  He  was  said  to  have  brought  literature 
down  from  heaven  to  earth,  down  from  the  aristocracy  to 
the  common  people.  His  sharp  attacks  upon  the  Jesuits 
made  him  read  and  known  in  Germany  and  England.  He 
also  was  read  widely  in  Spain  but  not  at  all  admired  there. 
The  keen  satire  and  sharp  wit  of  Boileau,  we  must  all  ad- 
mire. He  was  sometimes  called  the  modern  Horace. 
Boileau  pleads  for  reason  rather  than  imagination ;  he  goes 
on  in  the  way  of  Malherbe  and  brings  verse  and  prose 
together.  He  advocates  the  realism  of  the  classical  school. 
Boileau's  works  are  of  great  merit  as  they  defined  the 
theory  of  Classicism  so  well  that  this  became  a  model  for 
all  Europe.14  His  Lutrin  is  a  very  spirited  satire  on  a 
certain  class  of  the  clerical  people.  This  work  was  greatly 
admired  by  Pope  who  imitated  it  in  his  Dunciad.15 

Racine,  whom  the  French  have  said  to  be  "le  plus  par- 
fait  des  poetes  tragiques  de^  la  France"  was  especially 
noted  for  his  rich  and  melodious  verses,  as  well  as  for  his 
skill  in  dramatic  construction  and  his  keen  analysis  of  pas- 
sions. The  beautiful  stories  of  Esther  and  Athalie  have 
been  translated  into  many  languages  and  are  popular  books 


14.  "L'art  poetique,  le  chef-d'oevre  de  Boileau,  quiaete  Ion- 
temps  regarde  comme  une  autorite  infailliblc  dans  toutes  les 
questions  litteraires,  ct  qu'on  a  nomine  le  code  du  bon  gout, 
expose  les  principes  qui  ont  guide  les  poetes  du  ij.  Steele. 
Lange's  Litterature  Francaise,  p.  61. 

15.  "The  Dunciad  reads  as  though  it  were  copied  from  the 
Lutrin,  the  evident  relationship  between  the  two  poems  being 
shown  by  their  close  similarity  of  style."  Cambridge  Modem 
Hist.,  p.  70. 


Seventeenth  Century  47 

in  schools  up  to  the  present  time.  They  were  admired  by 
foreign  scholars  as  well  as  Frenchmen  and  were  soon  in- 
troduced into  the  German  schools.  Even  in  America  they 
play  an  important  part  in  the  prescribed  curriculum  of 
French. 

These  plays  were  written  for  a  girls'  school,  and  in  1698 
were  given  at  Saint  Cyr,  a  girls'  school  which  was  founded 
by  Mme.  de  Maintenon.  Shortly  before  this  Racine's 
tragedy  Aridromaque  had  been  given  before  the  pupils 
there,  but  the  role  of  Hermione,  had  produced  such  an 
overwhelming  effect  on  them,  that  Mme.  de  Maintenon 
asked  Racine  to  write  a  play  from  which  love  was  omitted. 
Racine  then  produced  Esther  which  was  played  with  the 
greatest  success  in  1689.  Afterwards,  inspired  by  the  suc- 
cess of  Esther,  he  wrote  Athalie.1G  Thus  we  see  that  the 
French  have  ever  been  diligent  in  working  out  the  prob- 
lem of  an  ideal  school  for  girls,  and  that  their  efforts  are 
still  duly  appreciated  in  many  countries.  Their  methods 
are  followed  and  their  books  are  still  read  with  the  most 
intense  enthusiasm. 

Madame  de  Sevigne  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable 


16.  "On  avait  fait  jouer  aux  eleves  de  Saint-Cyr,  en  pres- 
ence de  la  cour,  la  tragedie  d'  Andromaque' ;  mais  le  role 
d'hermione  ayant  produit  trop  d'effet,  Madame  de  Maintenon 
ccrivit  sur-le-champ  a  Racine:  "Nos  petites  filles  viennent  de 
jouer  Andromaque  et  I'ont  si  bien  Jouee  qu'elles  ne  la  joueront 
plus  jamais,  ni  aucune  de  vos  autres  pieces."  Ce  jut  dans  cette 
lettre  que  Madame  de  Maintenon  pria  Racine  de  lui  faire,  dans 
ses  moments  de  loisir,  "quelque  espece  de  poeme  moral  dont 
V amour  jut  entierement  banni."  Racine  composa  la  tragedie 
d'Esther,  qui  jut  jouee  a  Saint-Cyr  en  1689.  Le  succes  eclatant 
de  cette  piece  inspira  au  poete  un  autre  chef-d'oeuvre,  Athalie, 
mais  le  success  ne  fut  pas  le  meme.  Lange's  Hist,  of  Litera- 
ture Francaice,  p.  49. 


48  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

individuals  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  She  created  a  new 
kind  of  literature  in  the  form  of  letters.  These  are  full 
of  historical  and  literary  merit,  though  without  any  pre- 
tence to  oratory.  They  are  full  of  emotion  and  noble  sen- 
timents, high  in  spirit  and  with  a  pleasant  wit.  Madame 
de  Sevigne  was  closely  connected  with  the  Court  through 
the  marriage  of  her  daughter  to  Count  de  Grignan,  who 
two  years  later  became  governor  of  the  Province.  In  these 
letters  of  Madame  de  Sevigne  to  her  daughter,  we  get  a 
great  deal  of  the  history  of  Louis  XIV,  and  see  the  soul 
of  this  great  man  reflected  as  in  a  mirror.  Her  letters  are 
read  in  schools  in  many  countries,  and  here  in  America 
they  are  still  a  popular  part  of  the  curriculum  of  French 
in  our  colleges.17 

We  must  now  speak  of  the  preachers  of  France,  as  they 
too  played  an  important  part  in  the  culture  of  Europe.  In 
the  reign  of  Louis  the  XIV,  the  masses  could  best  be 
reached  through  the  pulpit.  This  was  accomplished  by 
the  eloquence  de  la  chaire  where  the  great  religious  digni- 
taries addressed  the  people  and  made  the  State  announce- 
ments.18 The  two  remarkable  men  of  this  class  were 
Boussuet1"  and  Flecher.    Boussuet  took  his  doctor's  degree 


17.  "Les  lettrcs,  dc  Mm.  de  Sevigne,  qui  cmbrassent  des 
plus  curieuses  annees  du  rcgne  du  Louis  XIV.  sont  precieuses 
pour  I'histoire  des  evencments  ct  des  moers  du  temps;  elles 
nous  font  connaitre  la  cour  ct  ses  intrigues,  le  roi  et  sa  vie 
privee,  I'Eglise,  le  theatre  la  literature,  la  guerre  et  les  fetes." 
Lange's  Hist,  of  Fr.  Lit.,  p.  65. 

18.  Bossuet  pressed  the  most  powerful  eloquence,  and  a  ver- 
bal, but  yet  disciplined,  vehemence  into  the  service  of  the  reli- 
gion he  expounded."    Cambridge  Modern  History,  Vol.  5,  p.  66. 

19.  Bossuet  est  le  plus  grand  orateur  peut-etre  qu'ait  pro- 
duit  la  chaire  chrctiennes  son  mon  est  aujourd'hui  synonyme 
d 'eloquence..  II  s'est  cree  une  langue  sublime  de  majeste,  d'elan 


Seventeenth  Century  49 

at  the  age  of  twenty-five  at  the  Sorbonne.  He  was  a  fin- 
ished scholar  in  oratory.  He  became  the  Court  preacher 
and  was  the  instructor  of  the  Dauphin.  Boussuet,  Fiedl- 
er, andBourdaloue20  attained  to  the  dignity  of  finished  pul- 
pit oratory.  Boussuet  was  one  of  the  greatest  classical 
scholars  in  this  grand  age  of  literature  and  he  added  real 
dignity  and  simplicity  to  public  oratory.21  His  two  great- 
est works  are:  'Les  Oraisons  funebres'  and  'Le  Discours 
sur  l'histoire  universelle.'22  He  became  famous  and  world 
renowned  in  his  two  great  funeral  orations  on  the  two 
Henriettes  of  France  and  England,  mother  and  daugh- 
ter.23 French  literature  profited  by  his  great  work  Dis- 
cours sur  l'histoire  universelle.     In  this  he  created  a  new 


et  dc  splcndcur,  qui  eclate  surlout  dans  ses  Oraisons  funebres. 
Les  plus  admirces  sont  celles  dc  Henriette  de  France,  reine 
d'Angletcrre,  et  de  sa  fille  Henriette  d'Angleterre."  Lange  Fr. 
Hist.  Lit.,  p.  66. 

20.  "Le  siecle  de  Louis  XIV  nc  permit  pas  a  I'eloquence 
politique  dc  sc  dcploycr;  la  voix  du  citoyen  jut  eeouffee,  mais 
la  chaire  jut  plus  libre,  et  le  siecle  s'est  applique  avec  beau- 
coup  de  zelc  a  pcrjectionner  le  sermon."  Lange's  Hist,  of  Lit. 
p.  65. 

21.  "Bossuet  est  grand  encore  comme  theologien,  comme 
philosophe  et  comme  historien.  Dans  son  Discours  sur  l'his- 
toire universelle  il  a  cultive  ou  plutot  cree  un  nouveau  genre: 
la  philosophic  de  l'histoire."  Lange  p.  66. 

22.  "Dans  Discours  sur  l'histoire  universelle,"  les  trones  et 
les  empires  tombent  avec  un  jracas  effroyable  les  uns  sur  les 
autres,  et  au  milieu  de  cette  mobilite  des  institutions  humaines 
se  dressc  I'empire  du  Fils  de  I'homme  auquel  seul  I'eternite 
est  promise.  On  peut  contester  la  verite  du  point  de  vue  de 
Bossuet:  on  n'en  peut  meconnaitre  la  magnificence.  Ce  sont 
les  jastes  du  genre  humain  apercus  du  haut  du  Sinai."  Dento- 
geot. 

23.  Henriette  de  France,  reine  d'Angleterre,  etait  epouse  de 
Charles  I.  et  sa  fille  Henriette  d'Angleterre  etait  mariee  a  Phil- 
ippe, due  d'Orleans,  jrdre  de  Louis  XIV  et  du  grande  Conde. 
Lange. 


50         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

kind  of  history,  that  of  the  philosophy  of  history.  This 
and  some  of  his  other  works  produced  no  small  effect  up- 
on England  and  Germany  where  finished  pulpit  orators 
were  in  demand.  The  works  of  these  orators  were  zeal- 
ously studied  by  the  less  able  preachers  who  wished  to 
promote  themselves  in  rhetoric  and  oratory.  They  cer- 
tainly gained  in  style  and  besides  they  came  under  the  in- 
fluence of  these  men  whose  ideas  they,  in  turn,  loudly  pro- 
claimed from  their  pulpits  to  the  world.  This  produced 
an  influence  of  refinement  and  culture  upon  laymen  as  well 
as  scholars. 

The  age  of  Louis  XIV  or  the  golden  age  of  literature 
of  France,  made  a  lasting  effect  not  only  upon  Ger- 
many and  England  but  also  upon  Spain.  This  was  the 
time  of  the  decadence  of  the  literature  of  Spain.  Since 
their  own  literary  productions  were  almost  at  a  standstill, 
they  naturally  looked  to  France  the  one  country  so  rich  in 
productions  for  their  spiritual  and  mental  food.  This  was 
easy,  furthermore,  for  them  to  do  because  Spain  was  re- 
lated to  France  by  marriage  through  Philip  V,  grandson 
of  Louis  XIV,  and  French  was  already  the  court  lan- 
guage. French  was  being  introduced  into  Spain  rapidly 
and  continued  throughout  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries.  For  more  than  a  hundred  years  there  is  scarcely 
anything  written  in  Spain  that  is  not  directly  or  indirectly 
derived  from  the  French.24 


24.  "The  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  it  might  al- 
most be  said  that  Spain  was  a  pupil  of  the  French  School.  To 
Ignacio  de  Luzan  y  Guerra,  the  disciple  of  Descartes  and  of 
Port-Royal,  Spain  owed  the  Logic  of  Port-Royal,  and  he  also 
introduced  Milton  to  his  countrymen ;  Moratin  wrote  both 
tragedies  and  comedies  entirely  in  the  French  style;  Cadalso, 


Seventeenth  Century  51 

after  finishing  his  student  days  in  Paris,  imitated  the  Let- 
tres  Persanes  in  his  Cartas  Marruescas,  and  Voltaire  in  his 
tragedy  Don  Sancho  Garcia ;  Jove  Lianas,  who  also  trans- 
lated Milton,  produced  in  the  same  epoch  on  the  Spanish  stage 
his  tragedy  Pelage,  written  on  French  lines.  Spain  had  to 
wait  until  the  nineteenth  century  hefore  she  again  reverted  to 
her  own  literary  idiosyncrasy."  The  Cambridge  Modern  His- 
tory, p.  69.  1 


CHAPTER  IV 

Fourth  Period 

Eighteenth  Century 

IN  the  eighteenth  century  we  must  consider  Rollin,  Mon- 
tesquieu, and  several  others,  but  more  especially  the 
two  great  names  Voltaire  and  Rousseau.  Rollin,  who 
was  called  "rabeille  de  la  France,"  devoted  himself  to 
education  all  his  life.  He  was  an  exceedingly  industrious 
man  and  a  modest  member  of  the  University  all  his  life. 
He  won  professorships  and  rectorships  of  the  University 
because  of  his  learning.  His  Traite  des  Etudes  is  a  work 
of  great  merit  and  is  much  admired  by  scholars  to  this 
day.  It  was  said  by  Villemain  that  there  never  had  been 
a  work  written  on  education  that  was  so  valuable. 

The  eighteenth  century  was  an  age  of  analysis.  Mon- 
tesquieu1 was  the  greatest  writer  on  political  science.  His 
life  long  he  was  thinking  of  many  literary  as  well  as  scien- 
tific schemes.  His  Consider ationes  in  1721  and  his  great 
work  Esprit  des  Lois  produced  an  immense  effect  on 
Herder  in  Germany.2 


1.  "Si  Montesquieu  n'instruit  pas  toujours  son  lecteur,  il  le 
fait  toujour  penser;  et  c'cst  la  un  grand  merite."  Voltaire. 

2.  "Persuade  que  ces  lois,  ces  institutions,  ces  moeurs,  si 
elles  n'avaient  au  fond  unprincipe  plus  releve,  plus  fecond,  qui 
les  fait  vivre,  tomberaient  bientot  ainsi  que  la  societe  qu'elles 
soutiennent,  il  cherche  ce  principe,  et  il  le  trouve,  soit  dans  la 
nature  de  I'homme  en  general,  soit  dans  les  causes  locales  et 
particulieres  de  chaque  peuple."  Lange's  Hist,  of  French  Lit., 
p.  75.    And  Kluge  says  of  Herder's  "Ideen  zur  Philosophie  der 

52 


Eighteenth  Century  53 

Montesquieu3  was  elected  to  the  Academy  but  because 
of  the  somewhat  cold  reception  tendered  him,  he  cared 
little  for  the  Institute  and  so  traveled  three  years  in 
Europe.  He  now  visited  England  where  he  was  brought 
into  Royal  society  by  his  friend  Lord  Chesterfield,  and  his 
membership  in  this  society  helped  him  greatly  in  his  later 
works.  He  was  very  fond  of  England  and  Englishmen 
and  made  quite  a  study  of  political  affairs  there.  He 
greatly  admired  English  politics.  His  Considerationes  sur 
les  causes  de  la  grandeur  et  de  la  decadence  des  Romains 
in  1734,  was  one  of  Montesquieu's  greatest  works,  and 
was  much  admired  by  the  English.  In  1721  he  began  to 
make  himself  known  to  the  public  by  his  work  Lettres 
persaones  which  the  French  termed  le  plus  profond  des 
livres  frivoles.4  His  Essai  sur  le  gout  was  published  in 
the  Encyclopaedia.  His  Considerationes,  which  fostered  a 
spirit  for  patriotism  and  upheld  the  sanctity  of  oaths,  re- 
spect for  law,  and  the  independence  of  the  individual  as 


Menschheit,"    "In    diesem    poesiereichen    Werke     entwickelt 
Herder  den  Zusammenhang  der  Natur  mit  dem  Menschenleben 

und   macht  den  Anfag  cu  einer  Philosophic  der  Geschichte," 
Kluge  p.  147. 

3.  "Twenty  years  before  Herder's  first  writings,  Montes- 
quieu in  his  'Esprit  des  Lois'  (1748)  had  made  the  analysis  of 
political  institutions  a  means  of  gauging  national  character. 
Herder  applied  the  same  to  the  study  of  language,  religion, 
and  above  all  to  literature."    Franke,  pp.  320. 

4.  "Lettres  persancs  'le  plus  frofond  des  livres  frivoles' 
parvint  tout  de  suite  a  la  plus  grande  popularite.  L'autcur  jut 
recti  'ne  1727  a  V Academic  francaise,  non  cependant  sans  une 
vive  opposition  et  seulemcnt  apres  avoir  desavoue  les  plus 
hardies  de  ses  lettres.  II  se  mit  alors  a  voyager,  i'isita  I'Au- 
trichc,  I' Italic,  la  Hollande,  enfin  I'Angleterre,  ou  il  alia  avec 
son  ami,  lord  Chesterfield,  etudiant  partout  les  moeurs  et  les 
institutions  des  peuples."  Lange's  Hist,  of  French  Literature, 
P- 73. 


54  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

regards  his  faith  and  his  beliefs,  contained  features  which 
lent  their  influence  towards  the  questions  of  freedom  of 
thought  and  of  speech  which  were  already  exciting  the 
thinking  minds  in  Germany.  He  strongly  advocated  toler- 
ance and  liberty  and  seems  to  have  been  the  one  to  in- 
troduce those  feelings  which  developed  very  quickly  a  lit- 
tle later  in  many  of  the  wide-awake  countries  and  not  the 
least  in  America.  America  was  ever  alert  and  the  spirit 
of  independence  grew  perhaps  more  rapidly  here  than  in 
any  other  country. 

Montesquieu's  greatest  work  Esprit  des  Lois,  is  said 
to  be  the  one  on  which  he  thought  a  long  time  before  he 
began  to  write.  It  is  at  least  one  of  the  greatest  works  on 
political  philosophy.  It  was  necessarily  long  and  laborious 
as  it  tried  to  observe  all  nations  and  all  ages,  and  to  classi- 
fy all  forms  of  government,  and  to  describe  the  effect  and 
meaning  of  all  institutions.5  He  was  the  first  to  give  such 
prominence  and  importance  to  the  influence  of  climate  and 
environment  upon  national  characteristics.  Some  historian 
of  literature  has  said  that  Montesquieu's  work  became 
one  of  the  most  important  influences  which  bore  on  the  de- 
velopment of  the  American  constitution.  He  had  care- 
fully analyzed  the  principles  of  the  English  government 
and  so  when  the  drafters  of  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States  began  to  look  for  the  best  way  to  express  those  same 
principles  of  political  liberty  as  the  English  believed  in, 
they  turned  to  the  Esprit  des  Lois  and  took  most  of  their 
material  from  there.     The  three  divisions,  the  executive, 


5.  "I'Esprit  des  Lois'  onvrage  auquel  il  travaillait  depuis 
vingt  ans,  et  ce  livre  le  place  an  rang  des  premiers  ecrivains." 
Lange's  Hist.  Ft:  Lit.,  p.  73. 


Eighteenth   Century  55 

the  legislative,  and  the  judicial  powers  were  taken  from  his 
arrangement. 

Montesquieu's  influence  was  equally  great,  though  in 
quite  a  different  way,  on  Germany.  Herder,  in  his  Frag- 
mente  ueber  die  neure  deutche  Literatur  (1767)  claims 
that  literature  is  the  expression  of  national  character 
and  thus  explains  the  law  of  literary  development, — 
namely,  that  the  vital  forms  of  a  language  or  the  highest- 
types  of  literature  and  art  are  not  created  at  all,  but  that 
they  are  the  natural  result  of  accumulated  impressions 
coming  upon  mankind  living  collectively  together ;  that  is, 
human  beings  living  together  under  the  same  kind  of  con- 
ditions and  environment, jthat under  similar  conditions  ideas 
are  engendered  and  conceived  in  the  nation  as  a  whole  and 
simultaneously.  About  twenty  years  before  this,  Montes- 
quieu had  advanced  these  same  ideas  and  had  expressed 
his  views,  and  no  doubt  was  the  inspiration  to  Herder's 
philosophy.  Montesquieu  studied  national  character  by 
analyzing  its  political  institutions.  Herder  later  on  uses 
this  same  method  in  the  study  of  language,  religion,  and 
literature,  and  he  surely  must  have  caught  that  idea  from 
Montesquieu.  Goethe,  too,  was  inspired  by  Montes- 
quieu's idea  when  he  said  in  Dictating  und  Wharheit, 
"He  taught  us  to  conceive  of  poetry  as  the  common  gift  of 
all  mankind,  and  not  as  the  private  property  of  a  few  re- 
fined, and  cultured  persons." 

Montesquieu  was  appreciated  more  in  England  and 
Germany  than  even  in  France  itself.  Most  of  his  works 
were  printed  in  Geneva  to  escape  censure.  Naturally 
the  attempt  of  the  Sorbonne  and  the  French  govern- 
ment to  suppress  his  work  made  them  all  the  more  popular. 


56  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

They  were  soon  read  all  over  Europe  and  the  influence 
simply  can  not  be  told.  Twenty-two  editions  published  in 
less  than  two  years  were  scarcely  enough  to  supply  the  de- 
mand. He  was  not  fully  appreciated,  at  first,  in  France,  but 
was  greatly  admired  by  England.  In  fact,  Englishmen  and 
Montesquieu  seem  to  have  had  a  mutual  admiration  for 
one  another.  He  shared  some  ideas  with  Voltaire,  yet  he 
did  not  attach  himself  to  Voltaire  or  to  any  one  else  in 
this  philosopher's  beliefs.  The  noble  independence  of 
such  a  great  character  and  the  constant  devotion  to  serious 
study  are  much  to  be  admired.  He  stood  out  alone  and  in 
his  own  way  as  one  of  the  greatest  reformers  of  ideas  in 
the  eighteenth  century.6 

Buffon  (1707-1788)  the  great  naturalist  and  philoso- 
pher of  nature  produced  an  immense  effect  upon  all  Eu- 
rope by  his  book  Histoire  Naturelle.  "This  history  is  now 
almost  obsolete,  and  of  comparatively  little  scientific  value, 
but  it  had  an  immense  popularity ;  and  created  a  taste  for 
the  study  of  natural  history  throughout  the  whole  of  Eu- 
rope."7 The  French  called  Buffon  the  Montesquieu  of 
history,  because  he  did  for  nature  what  Montesquieu  had 
done  for  history,  and  for  law ;  he  tried  to  arrive  at  certain 
general  principles  for  the  study  of  facts.  He  said,  "Ras- 
semblons  des  faits,  pour  nous  donner  des  idees."  Hence, 
he  tried  to  form  a  theory  of  philosophy  of  nature,  just  as 
Montesquieu  had  searched  to  form  a  theory  of  legislation. 

His  speech  upon  entering  the  Academy,  Discours  sur  le 


6.  "Montesquieu  passe  en  revae  les  legislations  connues, 
les  lots,  les  moers,  les  institutions  des  peuples,  telles  qu'il  les 
trouve."  Lange's  Hist.  Fr.  Lit.,  p.  74. 

7.  Nelson's  Encyclopaedia.  See  also  Packard's  Lamark  of 
1 901. 


Eighteenth  Century  57 

Style  is  the  one  which  attracted  most  attention  in  foreign 
lands.  The  one  thought,  Le  Style  est  Vhomme*  is  familiar 
to  every  school  boy  in  all  countries.  He  claimed  that  the 
style  of  a  writer  is  that  which  stamps  his  work,  with  its 
true  and  real  value,  and  is  that  alone,  which  makes  it  his 
own.  He  was  one  of  the  neo-classic  cult  of  general  terms. 
His  care  in  the  way  of  expression  has  been  much  admired. 
Diderot  and  d'Alembert  were  among  the  Encyclo- 
paedists. They  took  upon  themselves  the  immense  task  of 
arranging  a  vast  and  complete  exposition  of  all  the  sciences 
and  of  all  the  arts  and  of  making  a  universal  collection  of 
all  knowledge  of  man,  and  of  all  things  known  to  man. 
It  tended  to  engender  scepticism  and  incredulity.  Besides 
these,  there  were  also  some  important  foreigners,  among 
whom  we  may  mention,  d'Holbach  and  Grimm  who  re- 
sided at  Paris  at  this  time  and  so  became  thoroughly  im- 
bued with  the  ideas  of  atheism,  which  they  in  turn,  with 
Voltaire,  spread  in  Germany.  Diderot  was  called  to  Saint 
Petersburg  by  the  Empress  Catherine,  where  he  propa- 
gated his  ideas.  He  wrote  well  and  much,  and  his  influ- 
ence in  Russia  was  even  greater  than  in  France  for  a  time. 
He  represented  the  school  of  materialism  and  atheism, 
which  is  marked  in  Germany  by  Kotzebue  and  Iffland.9 


8.  Son  grand  style  lui  assure  a  jamais  sa  reputation.  "Les 
ouvrages  bien  ecrit  sont  les  seul  qui  passeront  a  la  poteriie," 
dit-il  luimeme  dans  son  Discours  sur  le  Style,  qu'il  prononca 
pour  sa  reception  a  VAcademie  francaise  et  ou,  en  parlant  du 
style,  il  en  donna  le  modele.  Les  deux  passages  celebres:  "Le 
style  n'est  que  I'ordre  et  le  mouvement  qu'on  met  dans  ses 
pensees,"  et:  "Le  style  e'est  Vhomme."  Helene  Lange's  History 
of  French  Literature,  p.  95. 

9.  "//  a  public  beaucoup  d'essais  et  de  traites  ou  il  expose 
ses  doctrines;  plusieurs  romans,  puis  deux  drames:  Le  Fils 

,   naturel  et  let  Pere  de  famille,  par  lesquels  il  crea  le  genre  du 


58  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

D'Alembert10  came  in  contact  with  the  scholars  of  his 
day  in  politics  and  in  State  affairs  and  was  considered  an 
authority  among  them.  He,  too,  advanced  his  ideas  on 
atheism  and  materialism  and  this  cult  of  reason  was  popu- 
lar for  a  while  and  spread  to  all  places  of  intellectual 
activity.  D'Holbach,  who  was  a  German  by  birth  but  had 
lived  in  France  since  the  time  of  his  youth,  was  one  of  the 
sturdy  representatives  of  the  school  of  atheism.  His  house 
became  the  rendezvous  of  the  materialists  and  atheists. 
Here  we  also  find  another  German,  namely  Grimm. 

Voltaire   16Q4-IJ78 

Voltaire,  whose  influence  in  Germany  was  unbounded 
called  France  at  this  time  the  "whipped  cream  of  Eu- 
rope."11 France  wanted  to  be  the  center  of  the  civilized 
world  and  prided  herself  in  taking  the  lead  in  any  new 
thought.  The  literature  of  the  preceding  century  had  been 
scattered  exceedingly  rapid  because  of  the  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes.12  Hence  that  was  the  literature  which 
most  strongly  influenced  Europe.    Some  of  the  great  schol- 


drame  bourgeois,  qui  fut  cultive  en  AUemagnc  par  Kotsebue 
et  par  Iffland."  Helene  Lange's  Hist,  of  French  Lit.,  p.  96. 

10.  Diderot's  big  work  the  Encyclopaedia  he  published  to- 
gether with  D'Alembert. 

11.  "Dites-moi  ci  les  bons  livres  de  ce  temps  n'ont  pas  scrvi 
a  I'education  de  tous  les  princes  de  I'empire.  Quelle  nation  ne 
suivait  pas  la  France?"  Selected  Letters  of  Voltaire,  p.  82. 

12.  "The  Edict  of  Nantes  was  revoked  1685  by  Louis  XIV. 
The  unwise  act  causing  the  expatriation  of  about  fifty  thou- 
sand families,  who  carried  their  industries  to  England  and 
other  lands.  The  loss  to  France  was  great,  as  was  the  gain 
to  those  countries  which  were  wise  and  hospitable  enough  to 
afford  an  asylum  to  the  Refugees."    Crown's  Encyclopaedia. 


Eighteenth   Century  59 

ars  went  to  America,  many  to  England  among  them  Mot- 
teux,  the  translator  of  Rabelais's  works.  Montesquieu 
and  Buffon  traveled  there  and  played  an  important  part  in 
exchanging  ideas  and  in  carrying  French  influence  thither. 
Voltaire  and  Rosseau  also  traveled  in  England.  Voltaire, 
who  also  plays  so  important  a  part  in  the  making  ot 
French  literature  in  the  eighteenth  century  and  who  so 
strongly  advocated  the  idea  of  cold  reason,  of  atheism,  and 
of  realism  had  the  greatest  possible  influence  over  Ger- 
many. For  many  years,  he  was  the  intimate  friend  of 
Frederick  the  Great,  whom  he  taught  the  art  of  French 
poetry;  for  two  years  he  was  his  teacher  in  French  and  for 
many  years  spent  most  of  his  time  in  his  castle  Sans  Souci 
at  Potsdam.  Frederick  the  Great  filled  his  library  with 
the  books  of  Voltaire  where  they  may  be  seen  to  this  day. 
He  preferred  reading  Voltaire  to  any  other  writer.  These 
books  rilling  his  immense  library  in  the  castle  still  bear  tes- 
timony to  the  high  esteem  in  which  Frederick  the  Great 
once  held  Voltaire. 

The  prevailing  spirit  of  this  century  was  to  do  away 
with  imagination  and  to  pay  special  tribute  to  rationalism. 
Frederick  the  Great  came  now  directly  under  this  influ- 
ence through  Voltaire,  and  through  him  it  spread  through 
Germany.  Frederick  the  Great  read  and  spoke  French 
better  than  German  and  preferred  not  only  the  language 
but  also  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  French  to  those 
of  the  Germans.  The  court  language  was  French  and  all 
people  of  refinement  read  French  as  easily  as  German.  The 
children  of  the  wealthier  families  who  spent  more  time 
with  their  governesses  than  with  their  mothers  spoke 
French  much  better  than  German.     Frederick  the  Great 


60         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

who  so  ardently  admired  the  French  had  also,  at  Berlin 
and  Potsdam,  two  other  great  scholars  with  him  namely, 
LaMettrie  and  Maupertius.  Through  the  efforts  of 
Gottsched,  Germany  already  had  been  saturated  with  the 
doctrines  of  Boileau  and  through  Opitz  Germany  had  been 
filled  with  French  writings  as  models  for  their  poetry.  To 
this  day,  French  is  spoken  fluently  and  well  in  all  families 
of  culture.  (The  German  women  of  society  either  go 
to  France  for  their  styles  in  dress,  or  have  their  things  im- 
ported from  there.)  The  predominence  of  France  in  lit- 
erature and  all  intellectual  matters  was  so  great  at  this 
time  that  the  Berlin  Academy  offered  a  prize  for  the  best 
essay  on  The  Reason  for  the  Universality  of  French. 
Rivarol  was  the  lucky  one  who  won  the  prize  by  his  Dis- 
cours  sur  I'universalite  de  Langue  francaise. 

Voltaire's  ideas  on  rationalism  in  general  and  on  religion 
in  particular,  greatly  influenced  Germany  as  well  as  the 
works  of  Boyle  who  had  influenced  Voltaire  in  his  beliefs. 
In  the  year  of  1684,  Boyle  began  the  publication  of  a 
monthly  periodical,  Nouvelles  de  la  Republique  de  Lettres 
intended  to  be  a  review  on  history,  science,  and  religion. 
This  periodical  attracted  much  attention  in  Germany  and 
so  he  easily  sent  his  thoughts  broadcast  over  Germany. 
Boyle  was  opposed  to  Catholics  as  well  as  Calvinists  in 
regard  to  their  views  on  religion.  His  chief  delight  was 
to  try  to  disprove  the  infallibility  of  the  Holy  Writ.  He 
did  not  believe  in  the  miracles  and  tried  to  show  the  con- 
tradiction between  miracles  and  the  laws  of  nature.  Many 
articles  of  this  kind  were  translated  and  read  in  Germany. 

Voltaire  was  a  master  of  poetry  and  prose  and  showed 
a  keen  though  delicate  taste  for  satire  and  irony  which  he 


Eighteenth   Century  6 1 

used  without  mercy  whenever  he  deemed  that  the  proper 
weapon  with  which  to  chastise  his  victim.  Voltaire  was  a 
rationalist  and  atheist,  yet  like  all  great  and  good  men,  he 
stood  for  what  he  believed  to  be  the  truth,  honor,  and 
right.  He  abhorred  alike  religious  intolerance  and  politi- 
cal persecution ;  both  angered  him.  He  stood  for  "intel- 
lectual destructiveness  and  literary  conservation."  He 
strongly  advocated  independence  of  mind.  Voltaire  wished 
all  people  of  every  class  and  of  every  nation  to  be  free  in 
their  own  way  of  thinking  and  not  to  be  subservient  to  a 
despot's  whim.  We  might  quote  a  few  lines  from  Wright's 
Literature  on  Voltaire:  "Though  a  foe  to  religion,  he  made 
religion  and  the  world  more  honest ;  a  sneering  satirist,  he 
helped  to  bring  about  mercy  and  tolerance ;  a  dramatic  con- 
servative, he  suggests  the  melo-drama  and  spectacle;  an 
apostle  of  destruction,  he  made  possible,  though  he  had  no 
share  in  it,  the  reconstruction  of  French  society.  Though 
a  leering  cynic,  a  'singe  de  genie'  as  Hugo  called  him,  with 
the  'hedioux  sourire'  of  which  Musset  speaks  in  Rolla,  he 
was  kind  to  his  friends  and  gentle  with  many  an  ungrate- 
ful and  undeserving  person.  Though  vain  and  conceited 
he  did  some  of  the  most  courageous  and  altruistic  deeds  of 
his  time." 

Rousseau  1712-1778 

While  Voltaire,  the  free-thinker,  was  all  reason,  Rous- 
seau was  all  feeling  and  sentiment.  In  an  age  of  intellect- 
ual coldness  and  reason,  Rousseau  stands  out  all  alone  as 
the  one  who  introduced  sentiment.  Just  as  Voltaire  turned 
Europe  to  rationalism  in  its  most  severe  sense,  so  Rousseau 


62  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

turns  it  to  sentiment.  Up  to  this  time  it  had  been  deemed 
improper  to  show  one's  feelings,  even  in  matters  of  love 
where  the  heart  often  speaks  more  than  reason.  Rousseau 
was  so  full  of  emotion,  it  is  said,  that  on  being  introduced 
to  people,  he  sometimes  was  unable  to  speak  and  would 
merely  shake  hands  and  burst  into  tears.  Madame  Dupin, 
grandmother  of  George  Sand,  tells  of  meeting  Rousseau  for 
the  first  time:  "  J'apercois  un  petit  homme  assez  mal  vetu 
et  comme  renfrogne,  qui  se  levait  lourdement,  qui  machon- 
nait  des  mots  confus.  Je  fonds  en  larmes,  Jean  Jacques, 
etourdi  de  cet  accueil  veut  me  remercier  et  fond  en  larmes. 
Franceuil  veut  nous  remettre  V esprit  par  une  plaisanterie 
et  fond  en  larmes.  Nous  ne  fumes  nous  rien  dire.  Rous- 
seau me  serra  la  main  et  ne  m'addressa  pas  une  parole. 
On  essaya  de  diner  pour  couper  court  a  tous  ces  sanglots." 
Rousseau's  influence  on  all  of  Europe  is  immense,  not 
only  on  literature,  but  also  on  philosophy,  politics,  and 
education.  He  influenced  the  whole  world  to  a  love  for  lib- 
erty and  he  may  be  said  to  have  stirred  up  the  revolution- 
ary spirit  in  both  France  and  Germany.  He  certainly  ac- 
celerated the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution  and  gave 
it  somewhat  its  direction.  With  him  began  the  ceaseless 
strivings  for  liberty  which  he  aroused  in  his  Droit  de 
Vhomme.  Maret  admired  him  and  soon  everybody  read 
his  work  and  became  inspired  by  his  love  for  liberty.  The 
University  of  Jena,13  especially  advocated  the  principles  of 


13.  Schiller  who  lectured  at  the  university  of  Jena,  pro- 
pagated the  ideas  of  Rousseau. 

Schiller's  ideas  of  political  and  intellectual  freedom  were  the 
same  as  Rousseau's  with  whom  he  was  in  close  sympathy,  as  he 
was  a  disciple  of  his.  .  .  .  See  Encyclopaedia  Brit.,  Vol.  24, 
eleventh  edition. 


Eighteenth  Century  63 

Rousseau,  and  propagated  his  ideas  of  liberty  throughout 
Europe.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  German  drama, 
lyrics,  and  novels  were  filled  with  conflicts  and  had  be- 
come a  real  battlefield  where  class  tyranny  and  moral  cor- 
ruption prevailed  against  self-asserting,  free  individuals. 
This  conflict  was  stirred  up  by  Rousseau  who  more  pow- 
erfully and  more  eloquently  than  any  other  writer  of  his 
time  expressed  that  longing  for  freedom  of  nature,  for 
humanity,  and  for  individuality.  He  loved  nature  and 
hated  all  restraint.  The  Sturm  and  Drang  period  in  Ger- 
many was  called  forth  by  Rousseau's  writings.  To  quote 
from  Francke's  German  Literature:  "It  is  indeed  impos- 
sible to  conceive  of  the  Sturm  and  Drang  period  and  its 
movement  without  Rousseau's  Nouvelle  Heloise  and 
Emile.  It  is  undeniable  that  it  was  the  stimulus  received 
from  France  which  set  this  agitation  into  motion." 
Rousseau  saw  in  mankind  an  aggregate  of  free  and  equal 
individuals.  His  conception  of  an  ideal  state  of  nature 
is  taken  up  by  Schiller  in  his  ideas  of  an  ideal  state  of  cul- 
ture. In  his  discourse,  man's  noblest  and  genuine  humane 
endowment  is  held  up  as  the  greatest  moral  and  intellect- 
ual force  of  the  world.  He  places  great  power  in  beauty. 
"Only  through  the  morning  gate  of  beauty  goes  the  path- 
way to  the  land  of  knowledge."  In  Schiller's  Wilhelm 
Tell,  we  again  see  Rousseau's  ideas  of  republicanism  and 
individualism.  The  striving  for  justice  and  right  freedom, 
the  ideas  of  intellectual  revolution,  reform  and  reconstruc- 
tion as  conceived  by  Rousseau,  we  see  again  in  this  work  of 
Schiller.  Wieland's  Ayathon  is  likewise  filled  with  Rous- 
seau's ideals.  The  hero  shows  plainly  the  same  ideas  of 
following  nature,  rather  than  conventionalities.     He  be- 


64  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

lieves  in  the  virtue,  innocence,  and  freedom  of  the  will. 
He  is  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  nature  and  believes  in  a 
"former  ideal  state  of  mankind." 

Fichte  was  also  inspired  by  Rousseau  to  take  up  the  spirit 
of  the  childlike  innocence  of  a  good  conscience  and  perfect 
freedom  of  the  will,  as  we  see  in  his  Grundziige  des  gegen- 
wartigen  Zeitalters,  where  he  dreamed  of  a  primitive  state 
of  innocence  and  righteousness,  prompted  by  instinct.  He 
believed  that  restriction  of  nature,  and  the  conflict  between 
authority  and  freedom  are  the  causes  of  any  individual's 
falling  away  from  this  primitive  state  of  innocence,  and 
that  the  way  by  which  he  may  again  return  to  it,  can  only 
be  by  that  of  reason  and  culture. 

Goethe,  also,  came  under  this  same  influence.  We  see 
plainly  in  his  Hermann  und  Dorothea  this  same  striving 
for  freedom.  In  his  Iphigcnia  we  see  most  strikingly 
Rousseau's  ideas  in  the  liberation  of  Iphigenia  bv  her 
childlike  innocence  and  her  great  love  for  truth  and  her 
following  the  natural  impulses  of  nature. 

Iphigenia 
Beneficence  doth  no  reflection  need. 

Thoas 
'Tis  needed  oft,  for  evil  springs  from  good. 

Iphigenia 
Consider  not:  act  as  thy  feelings  prompt  thee.* 


♦Translated  by  Swanwick. 


Eighteenth  Century  65 

And  at  the  end,  Thoas  really  lets  her  go  because  of  her 
absolute  faith  in  the  kindness  of  humanity  and  her  child- 
like trust  in  him  as  she  reveals  the  whole  truth  to  him. 

Orest 

Requite  the  blessing  which  her  presence  brought  thee, 

And  let  me  now  my  nearer  right  enjoy! 

Cunning  and  force,  the  proudest  boast  of  man, 

Fade  in  the  lustre  of  her  perfect  truth ; 

Nor  unrequited  will  a  noble  mind 

Leave  confidence,  so  childlike  and  so  pure. 

Iphigenia 

Think  on  thy  promise ;  let  thy  heart  be  mov'd 
By  what  a  true  and  honest  tongue  hath  spoken! 
Look  on  us,  king!  an  opportunity 
For  such  a  noble  deed  not  oft  occurs. 
Refuse  thou  canst  not, — give  thy  quick  consent. 

Thoas 
Then  go!* 

In  short,  the  influence  of  Rousseau  was  felt  on  all  the 
world  in  his  ideas  for  freedom  and  in  his  revolt  against  the 
existing  social  and  political  order.  The  revolt  meant  the 
rise  of  the  middle  classes  over  an  aristocracy  by  birth 
which  was  not  an  aristocracy  in  spirit.  It  was  the  upward 
movement  in  the  dignity  and  self-respect  of  the  individual 
man,  no  matter  to  what  class  he  belonged,  and  it  was  also 
a  step  towards  reconciling  individualism  and  collectivism. 
It  is  always  true  that  the  perfection  of  the  individual  is  a 
step  towards  the  perfection  of  the  masses,  and  hence  must 


♦Translated  by  Swanwick. 


66  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

lead  to  a  wider  sympathy.  What  Tolstoi  and  Ibsen  are 
to-day,  Diderot  and  Rousseau  were  to  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries. 

Indeed,  our  very  constitution  is  based  on  the  ideas  of 
Rousseau,  and  his  influence  pervades  the  literature  of  all 
peoples  in  all  parts  of  the  world  to-day.  Rousseau  always 
had  a  circle  of  learned  men  around  him.  He  was  for  a 
long  time  in  close  friendship  with  Diderot,  D'Alembert, 
and  Grimm  over  whom  he  exerted  a  great  influence.  In 
1750  he  published  a  discourse  as  a  reply  to  the  question 
propounded  by  the  Academy  of  Dijon,  whether  the  re-es- 
tablishment of  sciences  and  arts  had  resulted  in  making 
morals  purer.  His  answer  was  in  the  negative.  He  made 
his  reply  with  so  much  energy  and  eloquence,  as  well  as 
power  of  argument,  that  the  Academy  gave  him  a  prize. 
Again  in  1754,  the  Academy  gave  out  a  question  as  to  the 
origin  of  inequality  of  men  and  whether  it  is  justified  by 
the  law  of  nature.  His  answer  was,  "No,  it  is  not  justifia- 
ble by  nature."  This  was  called  his  Discours  sur  I'inegalite 
and  though  it  was  far  better  than  his  first  Discours  sur  les 
Sciences  et  les  arts,  yet  the  Academy  did  not  this  time 
award  him  the  prize,  so  much  was  public  opinion  against 
him.  Nevertheless,  both  these  Discourses  set  scholars  and 
philosophers  thinking,  and  it  fostered  a  new  idea  of  a  gov- 
ernment, which  was  to  be  one  for  the  people  and  by  the 
people.  Here  before  all  people  of  different  classes,  he  ad- 
vocated that  all  men  should  have  equal  rights  and  an  equal 
share  in  government  and  society  as  well  as  in  all  the  en- 
joyments of  nature's  richest  and  choicest  blessings.  This 
is  important  as  we  see  here  the  roots  of  the  constitution  of 
the  United  States,  and  of  every  republic.     He  was  from 


Eighteenth  Century  67 

now  on  considered  a  democrat  and  a  friend  of  the  people, 
and  no  doubt  it  is  true  as  has  been  charged,  that  the  under- 
lying principles  of  socialism  have  been  derived  from  Rous- 
seau's agitation  of  liberty  and  equal  rights. 

La  Nouvelle  Heloisc  (1769),  Du  Contrat  Social 
(1762),  and  his  treatise  on  Education,  Emile,  (1762)  — 
these  three,  so  different,  yet  each  so  great,  raised  him  to  the 
highest  rank  as  an  educator  and  an  advocate  for  real  and 
true  freedom  of  thought.  He  stood  out  alone,  and  bravely 
in  an  age  of  intellectual  coldness.  In  his  book,  Nouvelle 
Heloise,  he  plead  with  so  much  warmth  and  such  passion 
for  nature  that  the  book  soon  became  very  popular.  Every- 
body wanted  to  read  it.  This  book  alone,  it  has  been  said, 
would  have  brought  about  a  revolution  in  the  way  of  look- 
ing upon  nature  and  society.  Rousseau's  Du  Contrat  So- 
cial shows  the  natural  and  ideal  government  to  be  the  di- 
rect government  of  the  people  and  by  the  people,  and  not 
one  by  an  hereditary  monarch.  His  book,  Emile,  was  the 
great  reformer  of  schools.  He  said,  "Trust  nature  and  fol- 
low nature."  All  our  present  ideas  of  out-of-door  study  and 
recreation,  our  ideas  of  living  simple  lives  in  close  touch 
with  the  beauties  of  nature,  the  enjoyment  of  free  air  and 
freedom,  can  be  traced  to  Rousseau's  Emile.  All  these 
teachings  backed  by  Rousseau's  matchless  eloquence  af- 
fected society,  and  brought  an  immense  influence  to  bear 
on  England,  Germany,  Spain,  and  other  countries.  In 
Emile,  where  Rousseau  makes  one  of  his  characters,  a  sim- 
ple village  priest,  give  a  complete  system  of  his  ideas  on  re- 
ligion, which  is  "a  natural  touch  with  nature,"  we  find 
traces  of  the  same  ideas  of  rationalism  which  Voltaire 
took  up,  and  which  was  called  atheism  by  some  writers. 


68  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

This  element  of  Rousseau's  teachings  comes  out  in  some 
of  Goethe's  writings.  Notice  his  Gotz  von  Berlichingen 
which  represents  a  conflict  between  the  strivings  for  free- 
dom, and  the  old  bondage  to  authority  of  the  ruling  pow- 
ers. Let  us  quote  from  the  history  of  German  literature 
by  Kluge:  "The  piece  represents  the  conflict  between 
the  rule  of  lords  and  the  new  order  of  things."  The 
extreme  sentimentality  which  we  have  seen  in  Rous- 
seau, now  several  years  later  comes  out  in  Goethe. 
This  spirit  of  sentimentality  in  an  extreme  form  is 
brought  out  in  a  striking  manner  in  his  Die  Leiden  dcs 
jungen  Werther.  It  is  a  representative  product  of  the 
Sturm  und  Drang  period,  which  particularly  belongs  to 
the  dreamy  sentimentality,  introduced  by  Rousseau.  Die 
Leiden  des  jungen  Werther  was  now  read  and  admired 
by  the  Germans  and  the  French  alike,  just  as  Rousseau's 
works  had  been  read  and  admired  by  the  Germans  and 
French  a  century  before.  There  seemed  to  be  a  regular 
craving  for  writings  of  a  sentimental  nature,  such  as  there 
had  never  been  before,  and  a  longing  to  break  away  from 
the  all-pervading  rationalism  and  cold  reasoning  intellect 
of  the  past.  Rousseau,  with  his  emotional  nature,  so  beau- 
tifully painted  freedom  and  the  out-of-door  nature  that 
its  alluring  attractiveness  lead  young  and  old  to  weep 
themselves  sick  in  longing  for  the  innocent  freedom  of 
the  will  and  the  upbuilding  of  the  good  that  is  innate  in 
one's  own  being  and  God-given  individuality.  Here  again 
we  see  the  power  of  the  beautiful,  and  the  sublime.  Rous- 
seau no  doubt  influenced  the  life  of  the  world  more  than 
anyone  since  the  birth  of  Christ.  He  certainly  caused  a 
change   in   politics  by  stirring   up   the   Revolution.     In 


Eighteenth  Century  69 

Germany,  his  works  were  active  in   fostering  the  spirit 
for  socialism. 

Rousseau  engendered  a  spirit  of  romanticism  and  showed 
a  strong  tendency  toward  a  real  revolutionary  idea  which 
bore  directly  on  the  individuals  of  his  time  who  indeed  ad- 
vanced in  a  single  direction  until  they  come  into  the  revo- 
lution itself.  Havelock  Ellis  also  observes  that  since  the 
Christianization  of  the  Roman  Empire,  "There  have  been 
four  great  movements  of  the  human  spirit  in  Christendom 
— the  Renaissance,  the  Reformation,  the  counter-reforma- 
tion, and  the  Revolution.  Three  of  these  movements  have 
been  so  diffused  in  time  and  space  that  we  are  scarcely  jus- 
tified in  closely  associating  even  one  of  them  with  the  in- 
fluence of  a  single  man,  but  the  Revolution,  incalculably 
great  as  its  results  have  been,  was  narrowly  circumscribed. 
It  is  comparatively  easy  to  measure  it  and  when  so  meas- 
ured its  friends  and  foes  ascribe  it — so  far  as  any  complex 
social  economic  movement  can  be  associated  with  any  one 
man — to  Rousseau."  Then  Havelock  Ellis  goes  on  to  say 
that  mainly  by  virtue  of  his  relation  to  the  Revolution,  alike 
in  its  direction  toward  socialism  and  its  direction  toward 
anarchism  Rousseau  is  claimed  to  be  the  pioneer  of  modern 
democracy.  For  both  of  these  democratic  movements,  the 
collective  as  well  as  the  individual  rest  on  the  natural  in- 
stincts which  Rousseau  made  it  his  mission  to  proclaim. 
"The  democracy  which  insists  that  the  whole  shall  embody 
every  unit,  and  the  democracy  which  insists  that  each  unit 
shall  have  its  own  rights  against  the  whole  alike  appeal 
to  deep  emotional  reasons  to  which  the  humblest  respond." 
Lemaiter  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  would  have  been 
no   Republic  without   Rousseau.     The  three  democratic 


70         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

movements:  republicanism,  socialism  and  anarchism  have 
been  slowly  entering  into,  and  transforming  the  political 
societies  of  men  ever  since  the  time  of  the  great  Revolution 
of  1789,  and  the  germs  of  all  these  movements  were  scat- 
tered abroad  by  the  one  man,  Rousseau.  Rousseau  was  also 
the  promoter  of  romanticism.  Emanuel  Kant  became  im- 
bued with  the  ideas  of  Rousseau  as  we  see  plainly  in  his 
Zum  Ewigen  Frieden  where  he  fairly  mirrors  Rousseau's 
ideas  of  a  perfectly  free  and  yet  peaceful  government.14 

Fichte's  phiolsophy  also  was  moulded  by  Rousseau  as 
we  have  seen. 

Goethe's  genial  soul  fairly  basked  in  the  sunshine  of 
Rousseau's  ideas  of  God's  out-of-door  universe,  of  soul  lib- 
erty, and  his  over-wrought  sentimentality.  The  senti- 
ments of  La  Nouvelle  Heloise  told  directly  on  Goethe's 
writings.  "It  is  only  the  heart  that  can  speak  to  the 
heart." — Goethe. 

Thus  Goethe  maintains  that  what  man  does  not  feel 
he  can  not  properly  express.  Let  us  quote  from  Goethe's 
Faust : 

Faust 

If  you  do  not  feel  it,  you  will  not  get  it  by  hunting  for 
it, — if  it  does  not  gush  from  the  soul,  and  subdue  the 
hearts  of  all  hearers  with  powerful  delight.     .     .     . 

Wagner 

But  it  is  the  delivery  that  makes  orator's  success.  I 
feel  well  that  I  am  still  behind-hand. 


14.     Kant's  simple  room  was  decorated  with  only  one  por- 
trait: it  was  that  of  Jean— Jacques  Rousseau. 


Eighteenth  Century  71 

Faust 

Seek  honest  gain  only! — Be  no  fool  with  loud  tinkling 
bells! — Reason  and  good  sense  are  expressed  with  little 
art.  And  when  you  are  seriously  intent  on  saying  some- 
thing, is  it  necessary  to  hunt  for  words?* — Goethe 

Of  the  French  romanticism  introduced  by  Rousseau, 
Havelock  Ellis  again  speaks:  "During  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  in  France  with  the  possible  exception  of 
Stendhal, — and  even  he  was  really  affected  by  the  move- 
ment,— it  is  not  easy  to  name  any  notable  figure  in  litera- 
ture who  was  outside  of  romanticism.  Rousseau's  in- 
fluence had  become  so  all-pervading,  that,  like  the  uni- 
versal pressure  of  the  air,  it  was  sometimes  unperceived 
by  those  who  were  experiencing  it." 

It  is  also  claimed  by  Havelock  Ellis  that  Rousseau  in- 
fluenced the  writings  of  Tolstoi,  Emerson,  and  George 
Eliot.  He  claims  that  Rousseau  was  in  advance  of  even 
our  latest  philosophers.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 
influenced  Tolstoi  in  as  much  as  so  many  of  the  vital 
points  are  in  the  same  way  and  manner  emphasized  by 
Tolstoi. 

Although  William  James  has  been  called  the  father  of 
Pragmatism  yet  Schinz  has  reasonably  argued  that  "the 
greatest  Pragmatist  is  and  will  no  doubt  always  be — 
Rousseau,"  since  he  has  so  clearly  set  forth  in  his  Emile 
and  the  latter  half  of  his  Nouvelle  Heloise,  the  conception 
of  truth  as  practical  truth  or  cash  value  rather  than 
science.  So  also  in  regard  to  the  profound  Bergsonian 
philosophy  of  to-day,  which  depreciates  reason  and  in- 
sists on  the  vital  force  of  instinct ;  that,  too,  was  laid  down, 


♦Translated  by  Hayward. 


72         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

with  somewhat  less  elaboration,  but  certainly  not  with  less 
emphasis  by  Rousseau. 

Thus  Rousseau  has  changed  the  ideas  of  the  world 
towards  religion,  towards  sentiment,  towards  love  for  na- 
ture and  the  true  appreciation  of  the  beautiful. 

Much  might,  indeed,  be  claimed  for  Rousseau  in  the  di- 
rection of  art.  Just  as  in  the  period  of  the  Renaissance 
artists  turned  to  the  classics  for  their  subjects,  so  after 
Rousseau's  time  they  turned  their  attention  more  closely 
towards  things  of  nature.  This  is  especially  noticeable  in 
their  attempt  to  be  original  and  in  their  copying  of  nature. 
The  present  tendency  is  to  turn  away  from  the  set  rules  of 
the  ancient  artists  and  for  each  to  follow  the  natural 
promptings  of  his  own  mind  and  soul.  He  replaced,  "re- 
ligious formalism  and  pedantry  by  mystical  enthusiasm." 
He  left  behind  the  system  of  chivalry  and  empty  forms  of 
gallantry  and  replaced  them  by  real  feelings  of  the  heart. 
He  inspired  all  mankind  with  a  true  love  for  nature  in  its 
biggest  sense.  Before  him,  beauty  was  expressed  in  cold 
mathematical  terms  prescribed  by  the  defined  rules  of  the 
ancient  artists,  but  with  him  nature  itself  became  the  inter- 
preter and  the  teacher  of  what  is  really  beautiful.  Rous- 
seau showed  that  he  had  the  heart  of  an  artist  in  his  joy 
before  all  that  is  beautiful  in  nature.  The  beautiful  sun- 
set as  well  as  the  sweet  little  flower  awakened  the  intel- 
lectual powers  and  opened  up  the  heart  of  Rousseau  and 
lent  inspiration  to  his  work.  Rousseau's  heart  was  large 
and  warm  with  a  kindly  sympathy  towards  all  mankind, 
which  was  perhaps  one  of  the  greatest  forces  in  making 
his  works  immortal.  Let  us  again  quote  from  Havelock 
Ellis:  "In  this  double  capacity  at  once  the  type  of  genius 


Eighteenth  Century  73 

humanity,  we  learn  to  understand  something  of  the  magic 
influence  of  Rousseau.  We  learn  to  understand  how  it  is 
that  before  this  sublime  character  the  most  unlike  persons 
in  the  world — the  Marquis  de  Sade  as  well  as  Emerson, 
Charlotte  Corday,  as  well  as  Emanuel  Kant — have  alike 
bowed  in  reverence.  What  shall  we  then  say  in  the  end, 
of  all  the  operations  of  this  man's  spirit  on  the  world  save 
that  it  is  a  miracle  with  effects  that  immeasurably 
transcend  their  causes?" 

What  Rousseau  was  to  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  Goethe,  who  was  inspired  by  Rousseau,  was  at  a 
later  period  to  Germany.  In  the  introduction  to  Faust, 
Calvin  Thomas  quotes  from  an  old  document,  found 
among  the  papers  of  Goethe  at  Weimer,  the  following: 
"Ideal  striving  for  influence  over  and  sympathetic  com- 
munion with  the  whole  of  Nature.  Appearance  of  the 
Spirit  as  genius  of  the  world  and  of  deeds."  First  part: 
"Enjoyment  of  deeds  looking  without  and  enjoyment  with 
consciousness."  Beauty.  Second  Part.  "Enjoyment  of 
deeds  from  within." 

Here  we  see  the  ideas  of  Rousseau.  This  document  was 
found  at  Weimer  and  it  was  at  Weimer15  in  1802,  that 
Goethe  met  Madame  de  Stael,  who  was  a  disciple  of  Rous- 
seau.16 As  to  the  element  of  truth,  as  real  truth,  which 
Rousseau  advocates,  we  find  admirably  brought  out  in 
Goethe's  Faust  in  this  little  sentence :  "Die  That  ist  alles, 


15.  L'avenemcnt  d'une  socicte  nowvelle  au  commencement 
du  dix-neuviere  siecle  amena  nccessairemcnt  une  rcforme  lit- 
teraire.  Les  deux  chefs  de  cette  reforme  furetnt  Mine,  de 
Stael  et  Chateaubriand,  disciples  epures  de  J.  J.  Rousseau  et 
de  Saint-Pierre."  Lange's  Hist.  Fr.  Lit.,  p.  101. 

16.  En  1802,  Mme.  de  Stael  sejourna  a  Weimer,  on  elle  fit 
la  connaissance  de  Goethe,  Schiller  et  Weiland."  Lange. 


74         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

nicht  der  Ruhm."  Again,  Rousseau's  great  idea  of  God 
in  nature  we  find  also  in  Goethe,  so  beautifully  expressed 
in  what  is  sometimes  called  his  confession : 

Who  dare  name  him?  and  who  avow:  "I  believe  in 
him?"  We  feel — and  dare  to  say:  "I  believe  not  in  him?" 
The  All-embracer,  the  All-sustainer,  does  he  not  em- 
brace and  sustain  thee,  me,  himself?  Does  not  the  heaven 
arch  itself  there  above? — Lies  not  the  earth  firm  here  be- 
low?— And  do  not  eternal  stars  rise,  kindly  twinkling,  on 
high? — Are  we  not  looking  into  each  other's  eyes,  and  is 
not  all  thronging  to  thy  head  and  heart,  and  weaving 
in  eternal  mystery,  invisibly — visibly,  about  thee?  With 
it  fill  thy  heart,  big  as  it  is,  and  when  thou  art  wholly 
blest  in  the  feeling,  then  call  it  what  thou  wilt!  Call 
it  Bliss! — Heart! — Love! — God!  I  have  no  name  for 
it!  Feeling  is  all  in  all.  Name  is  sound  and  smoke, 
clouding  heaven's  glow. — Goethe-Faust  (Garden  scene).* 

Schiller   1759-1805 

We  find  that  Schiller  was  no  less  affected  by  Rousseau's 
ideas.  Schiller's  Die  R'duber  which  is  a  revolt  against  op- 
pression is  a  work  of  the  Storm  and  Stress  period,  just  as 
Goethe's  Gotz  von  Ber lichen,  as  we  have  seen.  It  is  full 
of  the  same  revolt  against  tyranny  and  the  same  aspiration 
for  freedom  as  is  found  in  Rousseau's  works.  Let  us  com- 
pare the  definition  as  given  by  Kluge  of  the  Storm  and 
Stress  period  of  Germany,  with  the  same  ideas  in  Rous- 
seau. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  great 
change  took  place  in  the  field  of  science,  art,  and  poetry. 


♦Translated  by  Hayward. 


Eighteenth  Century  75 

In  the  field  of  religion  there  was  also  a  change.  The 
tendency  was  to  break  away  from  all  rules  previously 
established  and  to  introduce  a  somewhat  formless  re- 
ligion based  purely  on  the  reason  of  the  individual. 

In  the  teaching  profession  the  idea  of  Rousseau,  that  of 
return  to  nature  rather  than  to  follow  cold  reason  be- 
come very  popular  and  made  many  enthusiastic  followers. 
For  example,  Basedow  founded  his  Pedogogy  according 
to  the  ideas  of  Rousseau,  and  established  many  philan- 
thropic societies.  The  greatest  change  was  that  which 
took  place  in  poetry.  Here,  as  in  other  lines  of  art,  there 
was  an  ever  growing  desire  to  break  away  from  the  stiff 
rules,  and  set  forms  which  up  to  this  time  had  ruled  the 
writing  of  poetry  and  to  give  free  reins  to  the  inspiration 
of  the  subject.  In  this  way  they  wanted  to  create  some- 
thing all  together  new,  original  and  distinctive.  The  key- 
note was  originality  and  geniality.  Hence  we  may  justly 
call  this  time  the  period  of  originality  and  genius,  or, 
according  to  a  drama  by  Klinger,  the  Storm  and  Stress 
period. — KJuge. 

Now,  in  order  to  compare  this  definition,  with  some  of 
the  same  ideas  in  the  Rousseau  teachings,  let  us  first  take 
some  one  of  Rousseau's  works,  for  instance,  his  Contrat 
Social  and  see  how  we  find  the  same  revolutionary  ideas  in 
the  German  writers  of  the  Sturm  und  Drang  period.  Let 
us  take  Schiller,  for  example.  Now,  let  us  see  what 
Contrat  Social  stood  for.  Lange  says:  "il  proclama  la 
souverainete  du  peuple  et  une  egalite  absolute,  posant  ainsi 
les  principes  d' on  sortit  la  Revolution,  pendant  laquelle  le 
Contrat  Social  jut  pour  les  terrorists  ce  que  la  Bible  avait 
etb  pour  les  puritans  anglais  du  XVII  siecle."  In  Schil- 
ler's Wilhehn  Tell  we  certainly  find  a  strong  plea  for 
souverainete  du  peuple  et  une  egalite  absolue.  Let  us 
quote  from  William  Tell,  Act  II,  Scene  I: 


76         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

Rudenz 

Uncle,  I'm  here!    Your  will? 

Attinghausen 

First  let  me  share, 

After  the  ancient  custom  of  our  house. 

The  morning  cup  with  these  my  faithful  servants! 

(He  drinks  from  a  cup,  which  is  then  passed  around). 


Kuo 


ni 


(Offering  Rudenz  the  cup) 
A  pledge,  young  master! 

(Rudenz  hesitates  to  take  the  cup) 
Nay,  sir,  drink  it  off! 
One  cup,  one  heart!     You  know  our  proverb,  sir? 

Attinghausen 

Go,  children,  and  at  eve,  when  work  is  done, 
We'll  meet  and  talk  the  country's  business  over. 

(Exeunt  Servants).* 

What  could  be  more  democratic?  In  the  Rauber,  we 
find  the  same  striving  after  liberty  of  thought  and  action. 
He  expresses  his  anger  at  the  oppressive  chains  which  hold 
the  free  spirit  of  the  thinking  man  in  bondage,  as  well  as 
his  indignation  at  the  existing  condition  of  the  state.  Again 
in  his  Die  Verschworung  des  Fiesko  von  Genua,  he  not 
only  rages  against  the  oppressions  of  the  states  but  with 
cunning  and  wisdom  will  overthrow  the  state.  To  quote 
from   Kluge,   p.    178:   "In   Fiesco  or   the   Genoese  con- 


♦Translated  by  Martin. 


Eighteenth  Century  77 

spiracy,  a  republican  drama  which  appeared  in  1783  and 
also  belongs  to  the  Storm  and  Stress  period  we  find  that 
Fiesco  wishes  to  overcome  the  laws  and  regulations  of  the 
state  by  cunning  and  wisdom,  while  in  the  'Rauber'  a 
ruined  world  is  to  be  crushed  by  force." 

In  Kabale  und  Liebe  we  also  find  that  the  author  is 
vexed,  that  the  high  and  noble  in  the  world  must  so  often 
succumb  to  the  bad  and  common.  Schiller  shows  here 
how  the  simple  but  virtuous  peasants  are  trodden  under 
foot  by  the  despotic  rule  of  those  in  authority.  These 
dramas  all  show  the  same  trend  that  the  Contrat  Social 
of  Rousseau  does,  namely,  a  spirit  against  the  old  set 
rules  of  the  state  and  political  institutions.17  In  the  An- 
thologie,  the  lyric  poems  of  Schiller,  we  find  the  same  un- 
restrained longing  for  freedom.  According  to  Kluge,  p. 
179:  "Those  poems  bear  the  character  of  the  Storm  and 
Stress  period — they  are  formless,  full  of  exaggeration  and 
passion  and  express  an  overwhelming  longing  for  free- 
dom." These  are  likewise  the  main  characteristics  of 
Rousseau's  works.  In  Don  Carlos,  Schiller  will  tear  down 
the  old  existing  conditions  of  the  state,  not  so  much  by 
force,  or  by  the  way  of  a  revolution,  but  rather  .  .  . 
as  in  accordance  with  the  high  ideals  of  Rousseau  .  .  . 
by  the  light  of  truth,  simple  truth,  and  by  the  sword  of 
the  free  word ;  by  that  shall  the  world  be  changed.  In  his 
poetic  work  Die  Kiinstler,  Schiller  shows  the  significance 
of  art  in  the  development  of  the  human  soul.  "You  can 
enter  the  land  of  knowledge  only  through  the  morning- 


17.  Lange,  of  him:  "Les  idees  qu'il  a  rnises  en  vogue  sur 
I'infallibilite  du  pcuple,  etc. — out  beaucoup  contribue  a  amener 
la  Revolution."  p.  86. 


78  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

gate  of  beauty."  Here  the  beauty  of  nature,  becomes  the 
real  teacher  of  man;  the  artist  is,  as  it  were,  but  the  as- 
sistant, who  helps  man  to  see  the  beauties  of  nature.  To 
the  artist  he  says:  "The  dignity  and  worth  of  mankind  is 
placed  in  your  hand,  take  care  of  it!" 

Schiller  in  his  Wallenstein,  as  also  in  his  Im  Abfall  der 
Niederlande,  shows  an  unlimited  enthusiasm  for  the  lib- 
erty of  the  citizens.  He  is  now  so  full  of  the  spirit  for 
freedom  of  thought  and  action,  and  for  a  more  ideal  gov- 
ernment, that  he  produces  one  drama  after  another, 
expressing  his  indignation  at  the  existing  conditions.19  In 
his  Dreizigjahrigen  Krieg  he  shows  the  greatest  enthu- 
siasm for  religious  liberty.  Hence  his  enthusiasm  is  at 
its  highest  point,  when  he  describes  such  characters  as: 
Admiral  Coligny,  Wilhelm  von  Oranian,  Gustav  Adolph, 
etc.  This  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  after  the  de- 
scription of  these  characters,  his  interest  visibly  wanes. 
Some  historians  give  this  as  the  reason  that  his  work  Der 
Abfall  der  Vereinigten  Niederlande,  remained  a  frag- 
ment. For  in  reality  it  ends  with  the  establishment  of 
Alba's  rule.  So  also  in  Die  Dreizigjahrigen  Krieg,  after 
the  murder  of  Wallenstein,  and  after  the  death  of  Gustav 
Adolph,  everything  is  crowded  together  in  order  to  finish 
the  story  as  quickly  as  possible.  In  Die  Braut  von  Messina 
we  find  the  sentimentality  and  the  eloquence  so  character- 
istic of  Rousseau. 


18.    Kluge. 

iq.  "Nach  Vollendung  des  Wallensteins  1799  verlegte 
Schiller,  seinen  Wohnsits  nach  Weimer.  Hier  entwickelte  er 
erne  solche  dramatische  Fruchtbarkeit,  dasz  fast  jedes  Jahr 
ein  neues  Orininaldrama  erschien.  Daneben  zvurdcn  von  ihm 
aiisldndische  Stiicke  ilbersetst  und  fiir  die  Biihne  bearbeitet " 
Kluge,  p.  188. 


Eighteenth   Century  79 

We  have  now  tried  to  show  the  similarity  between  the 
works  of  Rousseau  and  Schiller,  by  which  we  claim  that 
Schiller  was  not  only  under  the  influence  of  Rousseau,  but 
was  indeed  a  disciple  of  his.  We  will  now  try  to  prove 
this  further  by  quoting  from  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica, 
eleventh  edition,  vol.  24. 

In  adopting  verse  instead  of  prose  as  a  medium  of  ex- 
pression, Schiller  showed  that  he  was  prepared  to  chal- 
lenge comparison  with  the  great  dramatic  poets  of  other 
times  and  other  lands;  but  in  seeking  a  model  for  this 
higher  type  of  tragedy  he  unfortunately  turned  to  the 
classic  theatre  of  France,  rather  than  to  the  English  drama 
which  Lessing  a  little  before,  had  pronounced  more  con- 
genial to  the  German  temperament.  The  unwieldiness  of 
the  plot  and  its  inconsistencies  show,  too,  that  Schiller  had 
not  yet  mastered  this  new  form  of  drama;  but  Don  Car- 
los at  last  provided  him  with  an  opportunity  of  expressing 
ideas  of  political  and  intellectual  freedom  with  which,  as 
the  disciple  of  Rousseau,  he  was  in  warm  sympathy. 

Ueber  Tragische  Kunst  (1792),  as  well  as  in  his  cor- 
respondence with  his  friend  Korner,  Schiller  arrives  at  the 
definition  of  beauty,  as  Freiheit  in  der  Erscheinung  which, 
although  it  failed  to  remove  Kant's  difficulty  that  beauty 
was  essentially  a  subjective  conception,  nevertheless, 
marked  a  new  stage  in  the  history  of  Germany,  as  to  their 
esthetic  theory.  ...  In  Schiller's  Wallenstein,  he 
portrays  the  two  lovers  according  to  the  French  pseudo- 
classic  method — the  two  lovers,  Max  Piccolomini  and 
Thekla,  are  an  obvious  concession  to  the  tradition  of  the 
French  theatre. 

Der  Neffe  als  Onkel,  so  much  admired  in  our  schools, 
both  here  and  abroad,  is  but  a  translation  from  the  French. 
Schiller,  in  the  year  1803,  the  same  year  as  he  wrote  Wit- 


80  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

helm  Tell,  translated  two  French  comedies  of  Picard  and 
also  finished  a  German  version  of  Racine's  Phedre. 

As  a  lyric  poet,  Schiller  was  the  exponent  of  ideas 
which  belong  to  the  period  before  the  French  Revolution 
rather  than  to  our  times.  We  look  to  his  high  principles  of 
moral  conduct,  his  noble  idealism  and  optimism,  rather  as 
the  ideals  of  an  age  that  has  passed  away  than  as  the  ex- 
pression of  the  more  material  ambitions  of  the  modern 
world.    Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  vol.  24,  p.  326. 

Thus  we  see,  Schiller  has  given  expression  to  the  ideas 
of  Rousseau  in  every  way:  in  freedom  of  thought  and  ex- 
pression, in  truth  as  a  real  factor  in  life,  in  beauty  as  a 
powerful  educator  of  mankind,  and  in,  that  the  way  to 
return  to  a  more  ideal  state,  both  as  an  individual  and  col- 
lectively, lies  in  a  return  to  nature.20 

At  the  time  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  Germany  had 
been  most  strongly  under  the  influence  of  French.  Then 
Germany  began  to  produce  some  writers  who  felt  that  it 
would  be  better  for  Germany  to  become  more  decidedly 
German  than  to  imitate  the  French  so  closely.  Frederic 
von  Logau  was  one  of  the  first  to  feel  the  necessity  for  a 
national  literature  and  had  the  courage  to  oppose  public 
opinion  and  public  taste  and  follow  his  own  taste,  which 
was  more  in  conformity  with  the  temperament  of  the  Ger- 


20.  In  Musenalmanach,  Schiller  published  a  poem  'Spazier- 
gang'  which  expresses  Rousseau  ideas  of  returning  to  nature. 
"Der  'Spaziergang'  enthdlt  einen  Ueberblick  iiber  die  Kulturen- 
tzvicklung  der  Menschheit,  und  zwar  schildert  der  Dichter 
nacheinander  das  Leben  der  Menschheit  mit  der  Natur,  das 
Leben  in  den  Stddten,  tie  Bliite  der  Kunst  und  Wissenschaft, 
sowie  die  Ze'xt  des  Verfalls,  und  empfielt  als  einziges  Mittel 
der  Rettung  die  Riickkehr  zur  Natur."  Kluge,  p.  185. 


Eighteenth   Century  8 1 

man  people.  Logau  set  up  a  new  standard  according  to 
German  ideals.  He  said  that  no  one  is  honored  among  us 
who  speaks  no  French.    Let  us  give  his  own  words: 

He  who  does  not  know  French  is  not  a  famous  man; 
therefore  we  must  condemn  those  from  whom  we  descend, 
whose  heart  and  mouth  know  only  German. — Logau. 

We  see  further  more  from  this  little  satirical  poem,  that 
they  even  disclaimed  and  disowned  their  ancestors  be- 
cause they  could  only  speak  and  feel  German.  We  quote 
this  to  show  how  immeasurably  great  the  influence  of 
French  literature  and  the  French  language  on  Germany 
was,  when  a  German  writer  speaks  thus  of  his  own  times. 
Let  us  again  quote  from  Logau  in  his  own  quaint  style: 

"Servants  have  to  wear  the  livery  of  their  masters,  can 
it  then  be  true  that  France  is  the  lord  and  Germany  the 
slave?  Shame  on  thee,  proud  Germany  for  this  dis- 
graceful bondage!" 

Can  we  wonder  that  a  German  should  be  disgusted 
with  his  own  people  when  he  finds  them  ashamed  of  theii 
own  language  and  the  customs  of  their  ancestors  when 
they  wrote  French,  talked  French,  thought  French  and 
even  dressed  French  ? 

Wieland  1733-1813 

Wieland,  too,  we  would  say,  was  very  strongly  under 


21.  Friedrich  von  Logau  1605-55  was  Germany's  most  gifted 
epigrammatis.     Notice   his   old   style  of    spelling. 

For  further  information  see  Robertson's  Hist,  of  German 
Lit. 


82  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

the  influence  of  the  universal  spell  of  France.  He  believed 
in  the  absolutism  and  rationalism  of  Descartes.  He  great- 
ly admired  Voltaire.  He  was  in  favor  of  the  French  rev- 
olution of  1789,  and  again  after  the  declaration  of  the  re- 
public, he  became  interested  in  German  paternalism.  Wie- 
land  was  ever  trying  the  new,  while  Klopstock  stood  b5 
the  old  traditions.  Wieland  gained  popularity  among  the 
fashionable  people,  whom  his  confrere  Klopstock  and  other 
greater  writers  were  too  serious  to  reach.  Wieland  was 
more  French  than  German  in  his  temperament.  He  seems 
to  stand  on  the  threshold  inviting  the  new  day  for  Ger- 
many to  enter.22  He  began  by  writing  in  the  French 
style,  but  finished  by  standing  firmly  for  a  decidedly  Ger- 
man literature.  He  took  his  story  of  Oberon  from  an  old 
French  romance  Huon  of  Bordeaux,  in  which  he  makes  a 
fine  blending  of  the  real  world  and  the  fanciful.  While 
Klopstock  was  for  a  higher  standard  of  morality,  Wieland 
strives  for  a  perfected  humanism.  In  this  way  he  did  a 
great  work,  for  he  endeavored  to  prepare  his  country  for 
that  dream  of  perfect  freedom  and  equipoise,  "that  uni- 
versal human  interest  and  endeavor  for  a  cultured  Ger- 
many." He  became  inspired  by  the  philosophy  of  Des- 
cartes in  regard  to  the  new  humanism  or  rationalism  and 
so  he  in  turn  endeavored  to  quicken  and  to  broaden  the 
realistic  current  literature,  which  was  welcomed  in  Ger- 
many. 


22.  "Heretofore  the  elegant  world  had  recognized  no  cul- 
ture but  the  French,  and  had  not  believed  in  the  possibility  of 
a  readable  German  book.  To  Wieland  belongs  the  credit  of 
winning  from  them  some  respect  for  their  despised  mother- 
tongue,  and  he  may  therefore  be  mentioned  with  the  grander 
names  who  were  preparing  for  the  new  day."  p.  311,  Hosmer 
Short  Hist,  of  Ger.  Literature. 


Eighteenth   Century  83 

Wieland  in  his  Agathon  gives  us  a  true  view  of  the 
rationalism  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  gives  us  here  an 
example  to  teach  us  how  far  an  intelligent  human  being, 
by  his  own  free  will,  may  advance  toward  the  true  perfec- 
tion of  character  and  how  he  may  by  his  natural  power  and 
innate  good,  advance  toward  wisdom  and  virtue.  He 
shows  also  what  a  great  influence  outward  circumstances 
have  in  guiding  our  way  of  thinking  and  acting,  and  how 
they  often  have  the  power  to  turn  us  either  to  the  good  or 
to  the  bad.  They  often  lead  us  silently  towards  wisdom, 
or  they  may  lead  us  in  the  opposite  direction  towards  evil. 
He  also  shows  how  important  is  self-restraint  and  how 
valuable  is  the  advice  of  the  good  and  the  experienced.  By 
close  attention  to  the  wise  and  good,  we  may  follow  their 
example  and  so  be  lead  to  the  most  ideal  perfection  of  char- 
acter and  may  become  good  and  wise.  He  thus  advocates 
the  philosophy  of  Descartes  and  lays  this  down  as  the  way 
to  reach  the  highest  human  perfection.  Thus  we  see  that 
he  was  strongly  under  the  influence  of  the  philosophy  of 
Descartes.  He  was  also  an  ardent  admirer  of  Voltaire, 
Diderot,  d'Alembert,  and  Rousseau.23  Wieland,  also  was 
influenced  in  his  writing  by  Voltaire's  Candide.  This  we 
see  in  his  Agathon,  where  the  character  Hippiastries  tries 
to  convince  his  young  servant  of  the  folly  of  idealistic  zeal 
and  his  religious  enthusiasm.24 


23.  See  Kluge,  p.  118. 

24.  Let  us  quote  from  Kluge's  Hist,  of  Ger.  Lit.,  p.  120. 
In  Agathon  "Wird  ein  platonischcr  Enthusiast  Agathon  einem 
Sophister  Hippias  gegeniibergcstllt,  der  inn  von  der  Unwahr- 
heit  seiner  Ideale  zu  iiberzeugen  und  ihn  sum  grubsten  Ma- 
terialismus  zu  bakehren  sucht,  der  keine  andere  Triebfeder 
menschlicher  Handlungen  kennt,  als  das  selbstsiichtige  Ver- 


84  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

Lessing  is  the  one  great  master  who  at  last  broke  away 
from  the  French  and  shook  off  the  fetters  of  the  influence 
of  the  French.  In  his  time  the  French  language  and  man- 
ners set  the  standard  for  actors  and  actresses.  It  was  sup- 
posed that  there  could  be  no  theatre  without  this  language. 
Lessing  himself  in  his  earlier  writings  used  very  much 
French.  In  his  Minna  von  Barnhelm  there  are  not  only 
many  phrases  but  whole  pages  of  French.  But  in  later 
years  he  became  more  decidedly  German.  In  his  Ham- 
bur gische  Dramaturgic  a  violent  attack  is  made  against 
the  French  Drama.  Lessing  was  angered  at  the  unnatural 
predominance  of  French  taste  and  style  in  the  German 
literature.  Lessing  realized  that  he  of  all  men  was  the 
one  who  at  that  time  could  set  his  people  free  from  the 
slavish  imitation  of  the  French  masters  and  could  direct 
the  efforts  of  his  countrymen  into  a  national  German  chan- 
nel. 

From  Lessing's  time  on,  the  German  people  began  to 
realize  that  there  could  be  a  literature  that  was  purely 
German.  They  now  began  to  look  upon  the  French 
merely  as  judicious  writers  and  not  as  unfailing  models  or 
perfect  ideals  in  the  making  of  literature.  They  looked 
upon  Corneille  and  Racine  and  Moliere,  along  side  of  such 
writers  as  Shakespeare  and  Sophocles  and  no  longer  as 
towering  above  them.  Lessing  was,  however,  under  the 
influence  of  rationalism  and  was  himself  a  rationalist  of 


langen  nach  Vorteil  und  Genusa.  Wen  auch  Agathon  eine 
solche  schmachvolle  Sittenlehre  mit  Entrilustung  von  sich 
zveist,  so  f'dllt  er  dock  in  die  Netse  der  liebenszuiirdigen  und 
rcizenden  Danae.  In  dem  Romane, — feiert  die  heitere  fran- 
sosche  Lebensphilosophie  einen  Triumph — iiber  die  fromme 
christliche  Schwdrmerei,"  etc. 


Eighteenth   Century  8s 

the  highest  type.25 

Voltaire  and  his  followers  wanted  to  do  away  entirely 
with  churches  and  the  clergy,  while  Lessing  finds  the 
church  a  help  in  the  upbuilding  of  character,  and  he  be- 
lieved in  the  relative  value  of  all  churches.  This  we  have 
seen  in  his  discussion  of  the  three  rings  in  Nathan  der 
Weise.  We  maintain,  as  has  been  said,  that  most  of  the 
positive  constructive  liberalism  in  German  life  to-day  has 
come  more  or  less  from  the  French.  During  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  the  stage  was  filled  with 
French  dramas  and  many  families  had  more  French  than 
German  books  in  their  libraries.20  This  is  especially  true 
of  the  more  refined  and  cultured  families,  who,  as  we 
have  seen,  wanted  their  children  to  learn  French  in 
preference  to  their  own  language.  At  this  time  when 
Gottschedism  was  at  its  highest  point,  Lessing  was  call- 
ed to  the  theatre  at  Hamburg  to  be  critic  of  the  Ger- 
man drama.  How  great  the  influence  of  the  French 
literature  at  this  period  was,  we  can  best 
see  from  Lessing's  own  words  in  his  Brieve  die  neueste 
Literatur  betrefend.    These  Brief e  were  edited  from  1759- 


25.  "Die  Parabel  von  den  drei  Ringen  (Act  III  of  Nathan 
der  Weise),  find  en  zvir  die  drei  monotheistischen  Religionen 
einander  gleich  zu  setsen,  und  das  wahre  in  jeder  derselben 
ist  die  Toleranz,  die  Humanitat,  die  Liebe  und  reinste  Sitt- 
lichkeit.  (Da  sich  der  gottliche  Ursprung  irgend  einer  Religion 
nicht  beweisen  lasse,  so  bestehe  die  hochste  Pflicht  des  Men- 
seen  nicht  im  Glauben,  sondem  in  der  Tugend)." 

26.  To  see  the  predominence  of  French  at  this  time  let  us 
quote  from  Kluge's  Hist,  of  Ger.  Lit.,  p.  139. 

"Hambiirgisch  Dramaturgie  (1767-1769)  die  aus  einer  Reihe 
von  Kritiken  iiber  52  Theaterstiicke  besteht,  unter  zvelchen 
ungefdhr  swei  Drittel  Ueberstzungen  aus  dem  Franzosischen 
sind."    .    .    .    "Man     habe    den    guthersigen    Einfall    eines 


86  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

1760.  "Nobody,"  maintain  the  editors  of  the  library, 
"will  deny  that  any  good  thing  given  on  the  stage  can  have 
its  source  any  place  but  in  the  French."  Lessing  bravely  re- 
plied, "I  am  that  nobody,  for  the  true  German  drama  will 
by  far  exceed  it."  This  Lessing  tried  to  prove  by  his  own 
writings.  He  produced  his  Minna  von  Barnhelm  and  pre- 
sented this  beautiful  drama  to  the  German  stage,  and  it 
was  then  seen  that  it  was  possible  to  create  a  drama  with- 
out the  help  of  the  French.  Gottsched  had  been  so  over- 
anxious for  good  taste  that  he  had  insisted  on  the  French 
style,  and  so  people  thought  there  could  be  nothing  finished 
in  writing  that  was  not  French.  This  was  the  standard 
he  set  up  and  other  writers  followed  him.  Lessing 
worked  against  this  idea  and  tried  to  show  that  the  Ger- 
man literature  in  its  real  German  form  is  better  suited 
to  the  German  people. 

Though  Lessing  made  such  a  powerful  attack  against 
the  French  drama  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies, yet  Diderot  was  back  of  this  movement  and  urged 
him  on.  For  it  was  Diderot  who  started  this  criti- 
cism and  Lessing,  who  catching  the  same  spirit,  fol- 
lowed it  up.  Hence  that  which  Lessing  was  striving  for, 
was  not  so  much  the  banishment  of  the  French  drama  as 
it  was  to  overcome  the  spirit  of  despotic  conventionalities 
and  overwrought  attention  to  style  which  for  a  long  time 
had  prevailed  in  Germany  and  also  in  England.  Francke 
maintains  that  it  is  the  critical  forge  of  Diderot  we  see  in 


deutschen  National  theaters  gchabt,  ohne  zu  bedenken,  dasz  die 
Deutschen  noch  gar  keine  Nation  seien;  beinahc  konne  man 
sagen  es  sei  der  Character  der  Deutschen,  keinen  eigenen 
Character  haben  zu  wolleii." 


Eighteenth  Century  87 

Lessing's  Hamburgischt  Dramaturgic  and  that  it  was  sim- 
ply for  a  now  humanity  and  a  sound  nature  that  both  Les- 
sing  and  Diderot  were  standing.     Now  as  this  movement 
was  started  by  Diderot,  we  must  credit  the  French  with 
the  origin  of  this  idea.     However,  Lessing  takes  up  this 
movement  with  the  greatest  energy  in  his  criticisms  on  the 
theatre  at  Hamburg.     Lessing  declared  that  the  Germans 
had  no  theatre  and  he  said,  "What  we  call  theatre  is  but 
a  puppet  show."  He  said,  "I  cannot  understand  how  our 
people  who  see  the  poverty  of  our  theatre,  where  only 
French  pieces  or  translations  of  the  French  are  produced, 
can  be  such  ardent  admirers  of  the  French."     Then  he 
goes  on  to  say  that  he  thinks  that  not  only  the  Germans 
but  also  those  who  boast  of  having  a  drama — the  very  best 
drama  in  the  world — that  even  the  French  have  no  drama 
and     that     they     certainly    have     no     tragedy,     for    the 
French  tragedy  produces  an  impression  so  shallow,  so  cold ! 
And  again  Lessing  says  that  it  is  folly  for  the  Germans 
to  speak  of  a  German  national  theatre  while  they  as  yet 
have  no   German   nation,   that   they   are  still   the  sworn 
imitators  of  the  foreigners,  and  that  they  are  the  humble 
admirers  of  the  never-enough-admired  French.     He  then 
shows  that  the  existing  models,  such  as  Corneille,  Voltaire, 
Diderot,  etc.,  were  not  suitable  to  be  the  foundation  of  a 
German  national  theatre,  as  they  were  not  in  conformity 
with  the  real  German  spirit.    Then  in  the  bitterest  sarcasm 
he  says:  "Whatever  is  beyond  the  Rhine  is  so  charming, 
beautiful,  lovely,  and  divine.     We  would  rather  give  up 
sight  and  hearing  than  to  think  otherwise.     We  would 
rather  make  ourselves  accept  gayety  for  grace,  etc.,  than 
in  the  least  degree  question  the  superiority  in  all  that  is 


88  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

good  and  beautiful,  fitting  and  useful  which  this  won- 
derful nation,  the  first  nation  in  the  whole  world,  as  it  is 
pleased  to  call  itself,  has  received  as  its  share  from  a  just 
Providence." 

How  subtle  and  bitter  the  sarcasm  of  Lessing!  And 
how  strangely  all  that  he  said  in  the  bitterest  of  scorn  has 
proved  itself  to  be  absolutely  true  for  all  time  to  come, 
though  far  different  from  his  intended  meaning. 

For  do  we  not  to-day  turn  to  France  as  a  nation  superior 
in  all  that  is  good  and  beautiful,  fitting  and  useful? 

Has  not  France  proved  herself  to  be  the  one  great  na- 
tion favored,  as  it  were,  by  divine  help  to  withstand  the 
attack  of  an  invading,  all-destroying  enemy  ?  What  other 
nation  could  have  fought  so  bravely  in  this  present  strug- 
gle for  freedom? 

It  is  to  France  we  all  look  to-day  for  inspiration  and 
help  in  this  great  hour  of  a  world  wide  reconstruction. 
We  turn  to  her  as  our  leader  and  ally  in  our  onward 
striving  for  a  bigger  freedom  and  a  truer  democracy  than 
the  world  has  ever  yet  known. 

The  cutting  irony  did  not  banish  French  from  litera- 
ture, nor  did  it  kill  France,  for  she  stands  to-day  more 
glorious  than  ever. 

We  see  how  very  effective  the  French  influence  must 
have  been  at  this  time  on  Germany,  to  call  forth  such 
bitter  remarks  from  one  so  just  and  great  as  Lessing.  It 
is  with  the  deepest  scorn  that  Lessing  looked  upon  his 
countrymen  for  their  undue  preference  for  French  form 
and  style  in  their  literature.  In  some  of  Goethe's  works 
we  see  also  the  same  idea  that  the  French  stood  for  the 
highest  culture  and  the  best  manners.     In  his  Hermann 


Eighteenth  Century  89 

und  Dorothea,  where  Dorothea  in  speaking  of  how  she 
may  please  the  father  of  Hermann,  who  was  somewhat  an 
aristocrat  in  his  ways,  Dorothea  tells  Hermann  that  she 
having  lived  as  neighbor  to  the  French,  has  learned  their 
good  manners,  hence  giving  credit  to  the  French  for  what- 
ever of  culture  and  refinement  the  German  household 
might  possess.    This  is  what  Dorothea  says: 

Dorothea 

I  in  truth  shall  hope  to  satisfy  both  of  your  parents, 

For  your  mother's  character  my  own  nature  resembles. 

And  to  external  graces  have  I  from  my  youth  been  ac- 
custom'd. 

Our  old  neighbours,  the  French,  in  their  earlier  days  laid 
much  stress  on 

Courteous  demeanour;  'twas  common  alike  to  nobles  and 
burghers, 

And  to  peasants,  and  each  enjoin'd  it  on  all  his  acquaint- 
ance. 

In  the  same  way,  on  the  side  of  the  Germans,  the  children 
were  train'd  up 

Every  morning,  with  plenty  of  kissing  of  hands  and  of 
courtsies. 

To  salute  their  parents  and  always  to  act  with  politeness.* 

They  not  only  believed  that  all  culture  came  from  the 
French,  but  at  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution,  they 
thought  that  Paris  was  the  city  of  the  world  and  that 
there  was  liberty,  justice,  and  equality  to  be  found  as  no- 
where else  in  the  world.  Let  us  again  quote  from  Her- 
mann und  Dorothea: 

Who  can  deny  that  his  heart  beat  wildly  and  high  in  his 
bosom, 


90         The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

And  that  with  purer  pulses  his  breast  more  freely  was 

throbbing, 
When  the  newborn  sun  first  rose  in  the  whole  of  its  glory. 
When  we  heard  of  the  right  of  man,  to  have  all  things  in 

common, 
Heard  of  noble  Equality,  and  of  inspiring  Freedom ! 
Each  man  then  hoped  to  attain  new  life  for  himself,  and 

the  fetters 
Which  had  encircled  many  a  land  appear'd  to  be  broken, 
Fetters  held  by  the  hands  of  sloth  and  selfish  indulgence. 
Did   not   all   nations   turn   their   gaze,    in   those   days  of 

emotion, 
Tow'rds  the  world's  capital,  which  so  many  a  long  year 

had  been  so, 
And  then  more  than  ever  deserved  a  name  so  distinguished? 
Were    not   the    men,    who    first    proclaim'd    so    noble    a 

message, 
Names  that  are  worthy  to  rank  with  the  highest  the  sun 

ever  shone  on, 
Did  not  each  give  to  mankind  his  courage  and  genius  and 

language  ?* 

In  Lessing's  Minna  von  Barnhelm,  we  find  the  same 
idea  and  also  a  long  discourse  in  French,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  Lessing  was  trying  to  break  away  from  the 
French  and  wanted  to  establish  a  German  national  litera- 
ture. In  his  Miss  Sara  Sampson  he  showed  a  great  manifes- 
tation of  emotion  and  feeling  in  his  characters,  which 
might  be  considered  a  counterpart  to  Rousseau's  senti- 
mentality.    In  Emilia  Galotti,27   1772,  Lessing  gives  ex- 


*Translated  by  Bowring. 

27.  "Emilia  Galotti  ist  die  erste  groszc  dcutsche  Tragodie, 
ein  Muster  strenger  Gesetzmassigkeit  in  der  Anlage  und 
Durclifiihrung.  Us  ist  hier  nieht  ein  dunldes  Gcschick,  son- 
dem  das  Thun  der  Mencken,  das  den  Fadcn  spinnt,  den  Knot- 
en  echiisth  und  stost."   Klugc  Gcr.  Lit.,  p.  141. 


Eighteenth   Century  91 

pression  to  the  popular  indignation  against  the  universal 
oppressions  of  the  middle  classes  on  the  part  of  an  unjust 
and  unkind  aristocracy  and  thus  he  opened  the  battlefield 
which  is  carried  out  throughout  the  whole  period  of  the 
Sturm  und  Drangperiode  as  we  have  seen.  This  revolu- 
tionary spirit  stirred  up  and  agitated  in  the  classical  period 
of  the  University  at  Jena  was  to  bring  about  in  Germany 
the  counterpart  to  the  French  Revolution.  It  was  a  real 
striving  to  do  away  with  the  "aristocracy  based  on  birth 
and  privilege  and  to  put  in  its  place  a  new  aristocracy  of 
intellect  and  culture."  Lessing,  like  Diderot,  was  ever 
longing  for  that  spiritual  freedom  which  he  believed  to  be 
of  the  utmost  importance  as  the  aim  and  end  of  the  "edu- 
cation of  humanity." 

Germany,  always  has  been  slow  in  taking  up  with  the 
new.  Though  before  the  war,  Germany  was  taking  her 
place  at  the  head  in  science  and  in  art,  nevertheless,  she  has 
been  far  behind  France  in  the  march  toward  perfection. 

France  also  has  taken  the  lead  in  maintaining  the  purity 
of  her  language.  In  France  we  find  the  Academy  com- 
posed of  "the  Forty  Immortals"  who  give  their  time  and 
lives  to  keep  up  the  purity  of  the  French  language.  No- 
where in  the  world,  unless  it  is  at  Madrid,  is  there  even 
to  this  day,  a  similar  instance.  This  may  be  due  to  the  fact 
that  Germany  has  not  until  recently  been  a  political  unity. 
Every  little  kingdom  wanted  to  set  up  a  kingdom  of  its 
own.  Before  the  war,  however,  Germany  saw  the  import- 
ance of  doing  something  of  the  kind.  Again  she  turned 
to  France  for  inspiration  and  tried  to  keep  her  language 
pure,  by  compelling  her  actresses  and  actors  to  use  the 
same  pronunciation  all  over  Germany,  and  insisting  that 


92  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

this  should  be  the  standard  of  all  correct  pronunciation, 
and  that  none  but  the  pure  high  German  should  be  used 
as  good  German  on  the  stage. 

France  always  has  been  eager  to  learn,  and  it  is  there  we 
find  the  oldest  university.  Already  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury students  from  all  over  the  world  flocked  there  to  learn 
the  mysteries  of  the  universe.  Who  shall  measure  the  early 
French  influence  of  the  thousands  upon  thousands  of  eager 
students  who  flocked  there  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  great 
and  learned  masters  and  to  drink  in  wisdom?  It  was  so  in- 
expensive, then,  that  young  men  without  money  and  with- 
out price  could  go  and  study  to  their  heart's  content.  All 
that  they  needed  was  a  horned  spoon,  a  wooden  fork,  and 
a  jack-knife.  For  a  time  they  had  to  buy  their  own  seats, 
which  consisted  in  a  bundle  of  straw  which  they  could  get 
for  about  two  cents.  The  very  poorest  even  shared  their 
seats  with  their  fellow-students.  Their  food  they  begged 
wherever  they  went.  These  bodies  of  eager  students 
sometimes  became  boisterous  and  special  police  were  set 
over  them  to  keep  them  within  bounds.  Yet,  what  was 
this  boisterous  spirit,  but  the  exuberance  of  a  healthy  mind 
and  body  of  the  sturdy,  unsophisticated  youth  of  that  day, 
when  people  did  not  seek  worldly  wisdom,  but  rather  in- 
tellectual wisdom?  This  every-hungry  spirit  for  learning 
made  them  a  power  for  culture  in  later  years  wherever 
they  went. 

A  little  later,  we  find  the  assembly  of  the  learned  in  the 
palace  of  Charles  the  Great.  Then  the  school  in  the  par- 
lors of  the  learned  Madame  Rambouillet, — then  the  Col- 
lege of  France, — the  Academy  Franqais, — the  Polytechnic 
schools, — and  the  Philological  Schools  of  France, — and 


Eighteenth   Century  93 

finally  the  great  University  of  the  Sorbonne.  Thus  the 
French,  in  all  dignity,  ever  have  made  themselves  felt  a 
power  for  learning,  and  ever  have  proved  themselves 
worthy  of  the  leadership  which  they  have  undertaken  in 
the  world,  and  of  the  influence  which  they  have  directly 
and  indirectly  brought  to  bear  upon  the  rest  of  the  world. 
While  France  thus  lead  even  in  early  times,  it  was  not 
until  the  fourteenth  century  that  Peter  Ludwig  began 
something  approaching  the  plan  of  a  college  for  study  in 
Germany.  France  stands  out  quite  alone  in  the  early  days. 
Thanks  be  to  her  for  letting  the  sun  of  brightness  shine 
in  upon  all  places  of  darkness,  until  other  nations  began  to 
see,  and  find  themselves,  and  began  to  follow  her  example 
and,  likewise,  established  schools  where  learning  could  be 
pursued  by  those  who  were  anxious  to  learn  more  of  the 
world  and  its  cause  for  being. 

Russia 

In  1722,  Peter  the  Great  came  to  France  to  see  the 
wonders.  He  was  fascinated  with  the  grandeur  and  the 
splendour  of  the  court  but  more  especially  with  the  fine 
manners  of  the  courtiers  and  the  eloquent  expressions  of 
their  language.  When  he  had  been  received  at  the  Court 
he  lost  no  time  in  pleading  for  his  own  country,  but  asked 
at  once  for  French  leaders  and  educators  to  be  sent  to  his 
own  country.  This  was  the  beginning  of  French  culture 
in  Russia.  Teachers  and  leaders  were  sent  over  there  and 
French  was  taught  extensively,  French  taste  and  French 
manners  were  cultivated.  Hence,  after  Peter  the  Great, 
the  French  language  became  very  popular.     Every  one 


94  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

who  pretended  to  possess  some  culture,  set  himself  to  the 
learning  of  French  until  he  could  read  and  speak  it  well. 
French  became  the  Court  language.  All  families  of  wealth 
had  French  governesses  for  their  children.  This  love  for 
French  and  for  French  culture  has  been  kept  up  to  the 
present  day.  One  million  people  in  Russia  came  thus  di- 
rectly under  the  influence  of  French  literature  and  Philos- 
ophy. The  French  now  began  to  take  special  hold  on 
Russia.  The  Russian  writers  made  a  very  close  study  of 
the  French  masters,  and  being  so  deeply  impressed  with 
the  superiority  of  the  French,  they  naturally  imitated 
them.  Even  in  Tolstoi's  family  more  French  than  Rus- 
sian was  spoken. 

Spain 

The  influence  of  the  French  upon  the  Spanish  literature 
was  gradual  up  to  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  be- 
came very  strongly  marked.  When  the  grandson  of  Louis 
XIV  came  to  the  throne,  French  soon  became  the  style 
everywhere.  It  was  the  court  language,  and  the  language 
of  the  fashionable  parlor  gatherings.  For  about  a  hun- 
dred years,  nearly  all  that  was  written  was  in  French. 
Whatever  little  of  Spanish  literature  there  was  produced, 
is  almost  a  direct  imitation  of  the  French  or  a  translation 
of  it.  The  much  admired  and  beautiful  story  Gil  Bias  of 
Lesage  translated  by  Isla  in  1787,  so  greatly  loved,  and 
generally  believed  to  be  a  masterpiece  of  Spanish  fiction, 
at  least  by  the  classes  in  Spanish  who  read  it  in  our 
schools,  is  a  direct  translation  from  the  French. 


Eighteenth  Century  95 

Philip  V,  grandson  of  Louis  XIV,  after  the  War  of 
Succession  had  ended  and  the  Utrecht  treaty  in  1713  was 
signed,  became  ruler  in  Spain,  lie  was  of  course,  French 
and  was  most  naturally  interested  in  his  own  people  and 
language  and  introduced  as  much  of  French  manner  and 
ideas  as  was  possible.  Philip  was  quite  characteristically 
French,  belonging  to  the  class  who  thought  that  there  was 
no  other  country  like  France,  and  he  believed  sincerely  in 
the  centralization  of  learning.  Literature  and  art  had  al- 
most died  out  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II ;  there  were  only 
a  few  energetic  minds  that  still  kept  up  the  study  of  the 
sciences  and  arts,  the  majority  of  the  literary  people  were 
at  a  standstill  and  were  satisfied  to  live  on  translations 
from  the  French  rather  than  to  exert  themselves  to  pro- 
duce anything  original.  However,  Villena,  who  was 
Philip's  chief  ally,  was  a  man  of  the  greatest  learning  and 
did  much  to  keep  up  the  literary  activity  there.  They  said 
of  him,"//  savait  beaucoup,  et  il  etait  toute  sa  vie  eds 
en  rapport  la  plus  part  de  delius  les  savants  des 
divers  pays  de  VEurope."  And  again  it  was  said  of  him, 
"il  etait  un  hommc  bon,  doux  honnete,  enfin  laprobite, 
la  vertu  merne." 

In  1 7 14,  the  Spanish  Academy  was  established  and  Vil- 
lena was  made  director  and  was  very  active  in  the  interests 
of  the  Academy.  In  171 1  the  Biblioteca  Nacional  was  es- 
tablished. In  1780  the  Academy  of  History  under  Augus- 
tine de  Montiano  was  founded  which  also  bears  testimony 
to  the  effect  of  French  influence.  In  English  and  German 
literature,  we  have  already  traced  the  predominance  of 
French  literature  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Just  as  in 
Germany,  Frederic  the  Great  and  many  of  the  leading  men 


96  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

of  his  time  were  entirely  under  the  French  influence,  so 
in  Spain  the  masters  of  learning  with  a  French  king  at  the 
head,  became  greatly  affected  by  the  French. 

Besides  the  many  translations  from  the  French  into  the 
Spanish,  there  were  many  other  books  written  pretending 
to  be  Spanish  works  when  it  can  clearly  be  shown  that  they 
were  mere  imitations.  There  was  the  book  El  Honrador 
de  su  padre,  1654,  which  was  so  much  admired  by  the 
French  as  well  as  the  Spanish,  and  yet  it  was  nothing 
more  than  a  translation  of  Cid  published  under  that  new 
title.  Then  we  might  call  attention  to  the  book  (1680) 
under  the  title  of  El  Labrador  Gentil  H ombre,  which 
was  simply  a  somewhat  free  translation,  with  some 
changes,  of  Moliere's  Bourgeois  gentil  homme.  So  also 
were  translations  of  Moliere's  Les  Femmes  savantes  and 
Corneilles  Rodogune,  Cinna,  and  other  fine  plays,  played 
on  the  stage  in  Spain.  Some  of  Racine's  pieces,  such  as 
Iphigenie,  were  also  translated  and  perhaps  changed  a 
little  and  given  on  the  Spanish  stage. 

The  Spanish  are  said  not  only  to  have  imitated  the 
French,  and  translated  their  works,  but  that  they  gave 
many  French  plays  as  though  they  were  their  own.  The 
German  and  English  did  not  do  this.  They  thoroughly 
assimilated  the  French  and  its  style  and  then  produced 
works  of  their  own.  The  celebrated  Madame  Ursins 
greatly  enhanced  French  influence  at  the  court.  She  was 
a  strong  advocate  of  French  culture,  and  was  especially  in- 
terested in  the  stage.  There  were,  of  course,  some  Span- 
ish books  written  at  this  time  but  they  were  not  very  good 
and  so  scarcely  outlived  their  day.  Among  these  writers 
were  Jose  Leon,  Mansilla,  Maria  del  Cielo,  and  Gerado 


Eighteenth   Century  97 

Lobo.  Most  of  their  books  lacked  the  qualities  that  should 
give  them  lasting  merits. 

However,  there  were  some  few  writers  of  great  merit, 
among  whom  we  might  mention,  Ignacio  de  Luzan,  and 
Lodovico  Muratori,  who  wrote  Delia  perfette  poesia. 
Luzan's  teachings  are  said  by  a  great  literary  critic  to  have 
followed  the  same  trend  of  thought  and  leaned  towards  the 
same  doctrines  as  those  of  Boileau  and  his  descriptive  criti- 
cisms are  acute  and  keen.  Perhaps  Henito  Geranimo 
who  lived  from  1675-1764  was  the  greatest  writer,  yet  he 
imitated  the  French  writers  and  so  lacked  independence  of 
thought.  Nicolas  Ferdinandez  de  Moratin  1 737-1 780 
made  dramas  in  the  style  of  Racine,  imitating  him  as  well 
as  he  could.  Felix  Maria  de  Samanicego  1 745-1 801  was 
educated  entirely  in  French  and  did  not  even  like  Spanish. 
Samanicego 's  Fabulas  were  nearly  all  imitations  of  La 
Fontaine's  Fables.  Jose  Llanos'  play  El  delicuente  Hon- 
rado,  1774  is  somewhat  after  the  style  of  Diderot  in  his 
Fils  Nature!.  Melendez  at  the  time  of  the  innovation  of 
the  French  began  by  writing  verses  in  which  he  plead  with 
his  people  to  come  to  arms  to  the  help  of  Spain  and  ended 
by  taking  service  under  the  foreign  government.  Moratin, 
imitating  Moliere,  wrote  El  si  de  las  ninas  which  is  a 
humorous  piece  of  a  great  deal  of  merit. 

In  the  nineteenth  century,  French  influence  kept  on  in- 
creasing. "The  war  of  the  succession,  the  invasion  of 
1808,  the  Expedition  of  1823,  the  contrivance  of  the  Span- 
ish marriages  show  that  Louis  XIV,  Napoleon  I,  Charles 
X,  Louis  Philippe  dared  not  loose  their  grip  on  Spain." 

And  in  1 870-1 871  when  it  was  proposed  to  put  a  Hoh- 
enzollern    prince   on   the   throne,    the   French   cried    out 


98  The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

against  Alfonso  Uhland.  France,  they  said,  will  not  sure- 
ly denounce  her  traditional  prestige  in  diplomacy  which 
for  over  two  hundred  years  she  has  held  under  different 
kinds  of  governments,  and  hence  we  are  led  to  believe  that 
she  will  continue  her  literary  as  well  as  her  political  influ- 
ence over  all  countries,  but  more  especially  over  Spain. 
"French  literary  fashions  affect  all  of  Europe  more  or  less, 
they  affect  Spain  more."28 

Martinez  de  la  Rosa  wrote  his  best  pieces  while  an  exile 
in  Paris.  His  Aben-Humeya  was  first  written  in  French 
and  his  Conjuracion  de  Venecia  was  first  played  at  the 
Porte  Saint  Martin,  which  shows  that  French  Roman- 
ticism was  early  introduced  into  Spain.  The  national  poet 
Manual  Quintana  was  French  in  everything  except  in  pa- 
triotic sentiment.  One  of  the  greatest  writers  was  Mariano 
Jose  de  Larra,  1 809-1 837,  who  was  also  strongly  under  the 
French  influence  as  he  was  the  son  of  an  officer  of  the 
French  army.  Larra,  though  his  Spanish  is  most  idiomatic, 
he  knew  only  French  until  he  was  past  ten  years  of  age. 
He  took  the  name  Figaro  in  his  philosophical  writings. 
This  name  of  French  origin  also  shows  how  the  French 
clung  to  him.  The  French  influence  may  have  been  very 
helpful  to  Spain,  as  there  was  but  little  of  old  literature 
there  to  build  on,  and  so  the  French  writings  cleared  the 
way  for  a  new  development.  As  the  creative  spirits  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  could  not  be  revived,  was 
it  not  better  to  follow  the  other  countries  in  allowing 
French  culture  and  refinement  to  stream  in  upon  them 
and  so  to  open  up  a  rich  and  new  vein  in  Spanish  litera- 
ture? 


28.     See  Kelly's  Spanish  Literature  on  this  period. 


CHAPTER  V 
Fifth  Period 

MADAME  DE  STAEL,  daughter  of  the  celebrated 
minister  Necker,  plays  an  important  part  in  this 
period  of  French  literature  and  politics.  She  was  well 
versed  in  the  state  affairs  of  France.  In  the  society  of  her 
father  and  other  wise  men  of  the  court,  she  gained  much 
valuable  knowledge  which  made  her  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting as  well  as  greatest  writers  of  her  time.  She  was 
an  ardent  admirer  and  a  disciple  of  Rousseau,  and  her 
writings  concerning  the  character  and  works  of  Rousseau 
are  full  of  valuable  information,  and  are  of  lasting  merit. 
At  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  she  sympathized  with  the 
movement  but  disapproved  of  going  to  excess.  In  1802  she 
published  her  novel  Delphine,  in  which  she  portrays  a  su- 
perior woman  who  followed  the  promptings  of  a  higher  in- 
tellectual activity,  rather  than  the  narrow  regime  pre- 
scribed by  society.  In  this  work  she  voices  many  of  the 
ideas  of  Rousseau.  In  1802,  Madame  de  Stael  went  to 
Weimar  where  she  studied  the  German  language  and  lit- 
erature. It  was  also  here  at  Weimar  that  she  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  and  Weiland.  From 
Weimar  she  went  to  Geneva  where  learned  men  at  that 
time  were  wont  to  meet.  There,  as  at  Weimar,  she  met 
and  associated  with  the  great  and  renowned  men  of  letters 
on  whom  she  exerted  a  great  influence.  In  the  year  1805, 
she  wrote  Corrine,  her  greatest    work.     After    spending 

99 


ioo        The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

some  time  in  Italy  and  again  in  Germany,  she  returned  to 
France  for  some  time.  Her  personal  influence,  as  well  as 
that  of  her  works,  was  immeasurably  great.  She  was  at- 
tractive in  appearance  and  charming  in  her  manners.  She 
is  spoken  of  in  the  French  literature  as  the  "beautiful 
soul."  Let  us  quote  a  few  lines  from  Helene  Lange's 
L'histoire  de  la  Litteratur  francaise :  "ce  qu  'il  y  a  de 
plus  admirable  dans  cette  organisation  privilcgiet,  c'est  la 
fusion  intime  entre  lesprit,  le  sentiment  et  I  imagination; 
et  ce  qui  off  re  en  elle  un  charme  de  plus,  c  est  quelle  reste 
toujours  femme."  Madame  de  Stael  gave  freely  of  her 
beautiful  soul  to  all  with  whom  she  came  in  contact.  In- 
asmuch as  she  had  lived  in  several  countries  at  different 
times,  she  came  into  close  touch  with  people  of  many 
nations.  She  lived  in  Germany,  France,  and  Italy;  also 
passed  much  time  in  Vienne,  Moscow,  and  London.  She 
worked  everywhere  for  the  coalition  against  Napoleon. 

In  1 8 13  she  published  De  I'Allemagne  an  eloquent  ac- 
count of  Germany,  its  people  and  literature.  It  is  an  ex- 
cellent work  and  is  much  admired  in  Germany  to  this 
day.  It  is  also  read  in  schools  in  connection  with  the  study 
of  German  literature  of  modern  times.  In  1815  she  pub- 
lished Considerations  sur  la  Revolution  francaise.  After 
the  fall  of  Napoleon,  her  brilliant  salons  at  Paris  were 
again  opened  where  she  once  more  became  the  literary 
spirit  which  attracted  the  great  scholars  of  different  na- 
tions to  her  and  brought  them  thus  directly  under  the  best 
of  French  influence.  In  her  Dix  Annees  d'  Exil  she  her- 
self tells  of  her  voyages  and  her  opposition  to  Napoleon. 
It  is  easy  to  see  how  so  great  a  women  with  such  wonder- 
ful literary  talents  and  such  a  charming  personality  should 


Fifth  Period  IOI 

have  exerted  so  extensive  an  influence  over  the  various 
countries  in  which  she  lived.  She  was  strongly  attached 
to  the  principles  of  liberty  and  noted  for  her  faith  in  the 
perfection  of  the  human  spirit. 

Chateaubriand  1768- 1848 

Chateaubriand1  was  one  of  the  greatest  writers  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  He  travelled  much  in  America  and 
later  also  in  England  where  in  1797  he  published  his 
Essai  sur  la  Revolution.  During  his  stay  in  England  he 
taught  French  and  so  enriched  his  pupils  not  only  in  the 
language  but  also  in  the  ideas  of  the  French  as  to  culture 
and  refinement.  In  1802  he  published  his  le  Genie  du 
Christianisme.  This  was  his  greatest  work  and  was  said 
to  have  prepared  the  way  for  a  sort  of  restoration  of  reli- 
gion.    Let  us  quote  from  Nelson's  Encyclopaedia: 

Chateaubriand's  aim  was  to  demonstrate  the  beauty  of 
Christianity  as  found  in  art  and  letters,  and  that  Chris- 
tianity aids  genius,  purifies  taste,  gives  vigour  to  thought 
and  offers  noble  forms  to  the  artist.  He  was  the  first 
man  of  his  era  to  perceive  the  beauty  of  Gothic  architec- 
ture, and  the  beauty  of  the  monuments  of  the  middle  ages. 
In  1808  Rene  was  published.  This  book  also  created  a 
deep  impression,  and  it  may  be  said  to  have  created  the 
sentiment  which  gave  birth  to  'Childe  Harold'  and  the 


1.  "Si.  Mme.  deStael  pent  deja  etre  regardee  comme  un  des 
precurseurs  du  romantisme  en  France,  Chateaubriand,  par  ses 
qualites  comme  par  defants,  pent  en  etre  regarde  comme 
le  pere:  Lamartine  et  Victor  Hugo  en  proviennent.  II  merite 
ainse  la  double  gloire  d' avoir  commence  la  restaur ation  morale 
et  religieuse  du  dix-neuvieme  siecte  dans  saon  pays  et  donne  le 
signal  de  la  revolution  litteraire."  H.  Lange  Fr.  Lit.,  p.  106. 


102        The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

Byronic  mood  in  poetry.    In  1822  he  was  French  Ambas- 
sador in  London. 

He  wielded  an  immeasurably  great  influence  in  Eng- 
land which  cannot  be  over-estimated. 

Joseph    Maitre,    1754-182 1 

Joseph  de  Maitre's  works  are  tinged  with  high  political 
considerations,  and  involve  complete  papal  supremacy  and 
show  principles  of  theocracy.  He  wrote  'Generateur  des 
Constitutions  Politiques'  in  1 810.  He  was  ambassador 
to  St.  Petersburg,  in  1803,  where  he  further  encouraged 
the  French  by  his  presence  as  well  as  by  his  works.  Xavier 
de  Maitre  belongs  to  the  eighteenth  and  the  nineteenth 
centuries.  He  made  himself  famous  by  his  charming  little 
novels,  which  were  quite  remarkable  for  elegance  of  style. 
'Voyage  autour  de  ma  chambre'  is  one  of  his  best  works 
and  is  read  in  the  schools  and  colleges  today.  Through 
these  works  the  French  in  our  schools  has  been  made  in- 
teresting and  popular. 

After  the  Restoration 

We  are  now  to  speak  of  Beranger,  the  great  songster, 
the  most  popular  poet  of  France,  and  one  who  belongs  en- 
tirely to  the  people.  Beranger,  though  a  patriotic  writer 
never  mixes  in  politics.  The  songs  of  Beranger  are  pleas- 
ing and  graceful,  and  he  by  many  is  considered  the  most, 
pleasing  of  French  poets.  "Les  chansons  de  Beranger  sont 
gates,  pleines  d'elan,  gracieuses:  c'est  la  poesie  francaise 
par  excellence''  (Lange's  Hist.  Fr.  Lit.,  p.  113).    Accord- 


Fifth  Period  1 03 

ing  to  Nelson,  he  is  the  greatest  song  writer.  He  held  a 
clerkship  in  the  office  of  the  Imperial  University  where  he 
met  other  men  of  learning,  who  became  interested  in  his 
songs,  such  as  his  world  renowned  song,  Petit  Homme 
Gris,  Roi  d'Yvetot  and  Les  Enfant  de  la  France.  Some 
of  his  songs  were  full  of  bitter  sarcasm  and  hostilities  to 
the  priests.  He  was  imprisoned  for  printing  these.  Nel- 
son says:  "This  made  him  the  popular  idol,  and  he  exer- 
cised more  political  influence  than  any  man  of  his  time. 
In  1825  Beranger  published  Chansons  Nouvelles,  and 
in  1828  Chansons  Inedites,  for  which  he  was  imprisoned 
at  La  Foce.  He  was  visited  in  his  cell  by  Hugo,  Dumas, 
Saint-Beuve,  and  others.  His  songs  were  full  of  wit  and 
pathos,  and  were  admired  by  the  French  and  foreigners 
alike. 

Victor  Hugo,  1802-1885 

We  might  also  mention  Victor  Hugo,  who  belongs  to 
this  period  and  whose  works  are  read  and  known  to  all 
college  students.  His  works  such  as  Hernani,  Maria  Tu- 
dor, Roy  Bias,  Notre-Dame  de  Paris,  and  Les  Miserables, 
have  been  translated  into  many  languages  and  are  very 
generally  read  in  our  colleges  and  universities.  Victor 
Hugo,  though  a -leader  in  the  romantic  school,  hated  con- 
ventionality, and  was  constantly  striving  for  liberty.  His 
works  have  been  so  universally  read  that  they  have  exerted 
a  great  influence  over  many  countries. 

England 

The  influence  of  French  literature  on  England,  became 
quite  marked  at  the  time  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  when 


104       The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

Wilhelm  the  Conqueror  invaded  England;  French  ideas, 
manners,  culture,  and  refinement  were  then  introduced. 
We  will  note  some  of  the  main  changes  that  took  place, 
as  they  are  given  by  Welsh  in  his  history  of  English  liter- 
ature on  page  10. 

I.  With  it  came  the  introduction  of  chivalry.2 

II.  The  introduction  of  French  speech.  French  be- 
came the  language  of  the  court.  Until  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century  French  was  used  in  the  schools. 

III.  The  introduction  of  French  schools.3 

IV.  The  introduction  of  French  poetry.  "The  Nor- 
mans loved  only  French  ideas  and  French  verses." 

V.  Expulsion  of  the  English  language  from  literature 
and  culture.  English  was  not  spoken  in  cultured  society 
but  was  a  sign  of  servitude.  Hence  families  of  wealth  sent 
their  children  to  Paris  to  "preserve  them  from  barbar- 
ism." A  man  was  considered  a  barbarian  and  not  a  gen- 
tleman if  he  could  not  speak  French.  In  the  universities 
students  were  obliged  to  converse  in  French  or  Latin. 
Great  stress  was  also  laid  on  the  learning  of  French  man- 
ners and  taste.4 

Some  people  who  wished  to  be  thought  a  little  better 
than  their  neighbors,  learned  French  for  mere  show. 
"Gentilmen  children  beeth  taught  to  spake  Frenche  from 
the  tyme  they  bith  rokked  in  hire  cradell     .     .     .     and 


2.  From  the  French  cheval  meaning  horse. 

3.  Five  hundred  and  sixty-seven  schools  were  established 
from  the  time  of  the  Conquest  to  the  time  of  the  death  of 
king  John   (1216).     Welsh  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.,  p.  19. 

4.  "Children  in  schole,  agenst  the  usage  and  manir  of  all 
other  nations,  beeth  compelled  for  to  leave  here  owne  langage, 
and  for  to  construe  hir  lessons  and  hir  thynges  in  Frenche, 
and  so  they  haveth  sethe  Normans  came  first  into  England." 


Fifth  Period  1 05 

uplandish  men  will  likne  himself  to  gentylmen,  and  fond- 
eth  with  great  besynesse  for  to  speke  Frenche  to  be  told 
of."  For  nearly  three  hundred  years  the  French  lan- 
guage and  customs  were  the  standard  for  people  of  refine- 
ment and  culture.  We  still  perceive  the  influence  of  this 
by  the  many  French  words  current  in  the  English  lan- 
guage to  this  day.    Welsh's  literature  on  page  52  says: 

"Its  influence  was  very  great,  both  by  introduction  of 
many  new  words  and  by  changing  the  spelling  and  sound 
of  many  old  ones.  ...  In  the  thirteenth  century, 
French  acquired  that  widely  diffused  currency  as  a  gen- 
erally known,  and  hence  convenient  common  medium 
which  it  has  ever  since  maintained.  A  Venetian  annalist 
of  the  time  composed  his  chronicle  in  it,  because,  to  use  his 
own  words:  'The  French  tongue  is  current  throughout 
the  world,  and  is  more  delectable  to  read  and  to  hear  than 
any  other.'  "5 

Dante's  teacher  used  French  and  thus  apologized  for 
using  it  instead  of  Italian.  "If  any  one  shall  ask  why  this 
book  is  written  in  Romance,  according  to  the  patois  of 
France,  I,  being  born  Italian,  will  say  it  is  for  divers 
reasons.  The  one  is  that  I  am  now  in  France;  the  other 
is  that  French  is  the  most  delightsome  of  all  tongues,  and 
partaketh  most  of  the  common  nature  of  all  other  lan- 
guages." By  this  we  see  that  French  was  quite  generally 
used  in  all  of  Europe,  among  the  better  classes  of  people. 
The  popular  literature  of  the  middle  ages  also  came  from 
the  French  and  Italian  sources.  The  minstrel  poets  or  the 
trouvers  found  their  way  into  England.     They  sang  the 


5.     See  Welsh's  History  of  Literature,  p.  104.     See  also  p.  4 
of  this  work. 


106       The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

praises  of  the  kings  and  nobles.  "No  wonder  that  they 
were  caressed  and  richly  rewarded, — First  in  France  where 
they  were  native ;  then  in  England  where  they  were  trans- 
planted," Welsh,  p.  m.  In  the  emancipation  of  thought 
and  freedom  from  the  enslaved  intellect,  it  was  again  the 
university  of  Paris  that  took  the  lead.  "None  of  the  uni- 
versities grew  so  early  into  fame  as  that  of  Paris,  unri- 
valled for  theological  discussions.  Here  the  Rationalism  of 
Abelard,  the  'Knight-errant'  of  philosophy,  drew  down  the 
menaces  of  councils  and  the  thunders  of  Rome."    Welsh, 

P-  87. 

The  influence  of  the  Renaissance  entered  England 
through  the  French.  It  was  Erasmus,  one  of  the  most 
powerful  instruments  of  the  new  learning,  and  the  inter- 
preter of  the  Renaissance  who,  when  coming  from  the  uni- 
versity of  Paris,  on  a  visit  to  Oxford,  gave  inspiration  to 
classical  learning  there.  He  met  John  Colet  there,  who 
also  was  a  lover  of  the  new  learning,  and  whom  he  power- 
fully impressed  with  his  views  and  high  aspirations.  Colet 
now  more  powerful  and  zealously  advocated  Rationalism  in 
England.  Of  the  Nominalists,  Roscelin  was  the  first  dis- 
tinguished advocate.    Welsh,  p.  131. 

He  was  persecuted  and  fled  to  England  where  he 
brought  his  ideas  on  Rationalism  to  bear  on  the  philoso- 
phers whom  he  met  there. 

Descartes,  the  father  of  modern  philosophy,  has  done  so 
much  for  science  and  philosophy  that  even  if  he  were  the 
only  great  Frenchman,  the  French  might  rightly  be  proud 
of  their  country.  His  method  as  has  already  been  stated, 
created  a  revolution  in  thought.  Descartes  in  his  Dis- 
course on  Method,  declares  that  our  senses,  memory,  and 


Fifth  Period  107 

even  the  reasoning  faculties  deceive  us,  and  hence  he  makes 
universal  doubt  the  point  of  departure  for  a  new  system 
of  reasoning.  As  the  fundamental  starting  point  for  all 
other  truths  as  we  have  considered  in  our  discussion 
of  Rationalism  and  Humanism,  he  makes  this  one  fact 
which  is  known  to  all,  the  foundation  of  all  reasoning, 
"I  think,  therefore  I  exist."  This  he  lays  down  as 
the  first  axiom.  As  this  truth  is  known,  he  says,  it  needs 
no  syllogism  to  prove  it.  He  has  now  one  truth  to  start 
with.  Then  as  a  rule  he  gives  this:  "Never  to  accept  any 
statement  as  true  which  you  yourself  cannot  see  to  be 
true."  This  he  makes  a  second  rule:  "To  divide  each  dif- 
ficulty into  as  many  parts  as  possible  in  order  to  solve  it 
the  more  easily."  The  third  rule  is:  "To  begin  with  the 
most  simply  and  easily  understood  ideas,  ascending  by  de- 
grees to  the  more  complex."  A  fourth  rule  is:  "All  the 
parts  however  small,  should  be  carefully  numbered  and 
systematically  arranged,  so  as  to  be  sure  no  part  had  been 
overlooked."  He  would  make  philosophy  as  exact  as 
mathematics. 

"The  Discourse  on  Method  was  completed  by  three  oth- 
er works  on  dioptrics,  meteors,  and  geometry,  as  examples 
of  his  method  as  applied  to  science.  .  .  .  The  first 
describes  the  mathematical  principles  which  should  govern 
the  construction  of  lenses  for  telescopes;  the  second  con- 
tains, among  other  things,  the  earliest  complete  description 
of  the  cause  of  a  rainbow ;  the  third  is  the  most  important 
work,  and  with  the  Discourse  on  Method  contains  to  most 
enduring  monument  of  Descartes's  genius.  He  simplifies 
the  investigation  of  curves  and  their  corresponding  equa- 
tions by  a  system  of  co-ordinate  lines,  and  by  the  same 
method  brings  the  solution  of  negative  equations  within 


108       The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

the  scope  of  analytical  geometry.  .  .  .  Algebra  owes 
to  Descartes  a  simpler  notation,  the  method  of  indetermi- 
nate co-efficients,  and  the  first  sketch  of  the  theory  of  equal 
roots.  He  applied  Algebra  to  Geometry,  thus  forming  a 
new  science, — analytical  geometry. 

In  his  principles  of  philosophy  he  has  laid  down  several 
natural  laws:  first,  that  all  bodies  remain  in  their  existing 
state  of  rest  or  motion  unless  acted  upon  by  extraneous 
causes;  secondly,  that  all  simple  or  elementary  motion  is 
always  in  a  straight  line ;  space  has  no  limits  and  is  full  of 
matter ;  a  vacuum  cannot  exist,  nor  can  matter  be  divided 
into  ultimate  atoms.  His  Theory  of  Vortices  did  away 
with  that  of  Aristotle  and  paved  the  way  for  Newton's 
discovery  of  gravitation.  He  started  on  the  ground  that 
the  whole  universe  is  filled  with  matter  which  is  uniform 
in  character,  and  then  assumed  that  the  motion  given  to 
this  matter  by  the  infinite  power  of  God  produces  a  host 
of  more  or  less  circular  movements,  forming  vortices  or 
whirlpools  of  matter,  and  that  in  the  centre  of  the  vortex 
a  sun  or  star  is  formed."  (Wood's  Hundred  Great  Men, 
pp.  230-231). 

This  may  have  been  the  starting  point  for  Locke,  when 
he  claims  that  all  knowledge  is  gained  through  experience, 
that  the  mind  is  a  blank  until  it  is  touched  by  some  outside 
experience  gained  through  the  sense  perception.  While 
Locke  said  that  all  knowledge  is  gained  through  the  senses, 
Descartes  recognizes  the  difference  of  spirit  and  matter — 
the  thinking  and  the  extended  substance.  He  made  much 
of  the  innate  ideas  in  man,';  a  theory  which  now  plays  an 
important  part  in  psychology  and  in  physiology.     These 


6.  "If  any  event  can  be  foreseen  before  it  has  been  tried,  it 
is  manifest,  that  we,  contribute  something  for  our  own  parts, 
Ergo,  mere  experience  does  not  constitute  all  our  knowledge." 
Lewis  Hist,  of  Phil.,  p.  543. 


Fifth  Period  109 

sciences  were  not  so  well  known  then  as  now,  and  may  it 
not  be  that  Descartes  since  he  was  the  first  to  lay  so  much 
stress  on  innate  ideas,  gave  the  inspiration  to  the  theory  of 
inherited  tendencies?  Descartes  occasionalism,  received  its 
complete  development  in  the  precstablished  harmony  on 
Liebnitz.7 

"Occasionalism  the  principle  of  which  was,  that  body 
and  mind  do  not  really  affect  each  other,  God  being  always 
the  true  cause  of  the  occasional  influence  of  the  one  or 
the  other.  This  doctrine  received  its  complete  develop- 
ment in  the  pre-established  harmony  of  Leibnitz."  (In- 
ternational Encyclo.) 

Thus  this  doctrine  of  Descartes  was  propagated  in  Ger- 
many by  Leibnitz.  It  seems  that  Locke  did  not  read  much 
but  found  time  for  Descartes. 

"He  was  attracted  by  Descartes.  The  first  books,  he 
told  Lady  Masham  which  gave  him  a  relish  for  philosophy, 
were  those  of  this  philosopher,  although  he  often  differed 
from  him."    (Enclyco.  Brit.,  Vol.  16,  p.  884.) 

Locke  was  also  much  interested  in  Malbranche's  Rech- 
erche de  la  Verity  which  had  appeared  in  1675.  While 
Locke  was  at  Montpellier  he  spent  much  time  reading 
Malbranche's  works.  But  we  know  that  Malbranche  was 
a  close  follower  of  Descartes.  To  prove  this  more  accur- 
ately let  us  quote  from  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica: 

Malbranche   (1638-1715)   chanced  to  read  Descartes 's 


7.  "Leibnitz  had  other  than  political  ends  in  view,  in  his 
visit  to  France.  It  was  as  the  centre  of  Literature  and  science 
that  Paris  chiefly  attracted  him."    Brit,  Vol.  16,  p.  385. 


HO       The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

Traite  de  I'homme  which  moved  him  so  deeply  that  he  was 
repeatedly  compelled  by  palpitation  of  the  heart  to  lay 
aside  the  reading.  And  after  ten  years  of  study  of  Des- 
cartes, he  wrote  his  famous  De  la  Recherche  de  la  Verite, 
which  work  we  have  seen  produced  a  great  impression  on 
Locke.8 

In  1683  Locke  retired  to  Holland,  where  he  spent  some 
time  in  "an  examination  of  Malbranche's  Opinion  of  See- 
ing all  Things  in  God,  and  in  Remarks  upon  some  of  Mr. 
Norri's  Books,  tracts  which  throw  light  upon  his  own  am- 
biguous theory  of  perception  through  the  senses,"  Brit., 
Vol.  16,  p.  846.  Locke  no  doubt  exerted  a  great  influence 
on  D'Alembert  and  Condorcet,  yet  they  in  turn  affected  a 
great  influence  on  Bolingbrook  and  Chesterfield.9  (Cam- 
bridge's Modern  History,  p.  70. )  Yet  in  regard  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  free  will,  it  was  Descartes  who  stood  back  of 
them  all.  (Cambridge's  Modern  Hist.,  Vol.  V,  p.  66.) 
Condorcet  was  also  an  ardent  admirer  of  Voltaire,  and 
made  a  deep  study  of  his  philosophy.  (Wright's  Hist. 
Lit.,  p.  563.)  David  Hume  studied  and  worked  in 
France,  and  it  was  there  that  he  wrote  his  famous  book 
A  Treatise  of  Human  Nature.  In  his  philosophy,  he  dis- 
tinguishes between  impressions  and  ideas  and  so  diverts 
from  the  theory  of  Locke,  and  seems  to  partake  somewhat 
of  that  of  Descartes.  David  Hume  was  fully  appreciated 
in  France  and  his  ideas  on  scepticism  took  well  there.    He 


8.  "Locke  preferred  Descartes  to  Aristotle,"  Brit.  Encyclo- 
paedia. 

9.  "Locke  made  no  grand  new  discovery,  which  changed 
the  face  of  science.  He  was  not  even  the  first  to  turn  his 
glance  inward;  Descartes  and  Hobbs  had  been  before  him." 
Lewis  Hist.  Phil.,  p.  516. 


Fifth  Period  III 

was  received  among  the  learned  men  and  women  of  Paris. 
Earl  of  Hertford  made  him  his  secretary  to  the  embassy 
to  Paris.  He  loved  the  French  people  and  their  manners. 
The  philosopher  who  had  but  little  enjoyed  the  society  of 
the  official  circles  of  England  was  perfectly  charmed  with 
the  literary  society  of  Paris.  His  fame  had  gone  before 
him  and  when  he  came  to  Paris,  he  was  welcomed  every 
where.  In  his  letter  to  Robertson-Burton  II,  178,  he 
speaks  of  the  factious  barbarians  of  London,  and  speaks  in 
charming  terms,  and  with  a  warm  admiration  of  the 
French.  "Observing  on  what  a  different  footing  learn- 
ing and  the  learned  are  here,  from  what  they  are  among 
the  factious  barbarians  above  mentioned."10  He  was  in 
turn  very  earnestly  loved  by  the  French.  His  History  al- 
ready had  been  much  applauded  by  such  men  as  Voltaire 
and  Rousseau.  He  very  rapidly  absorbed  the  French  cul- 
ture and  manners  and  when  he  returned  to  England,  he 
was  almost  French  himself.  He  spoke  and  wrote  French 
well.  He  was  very  fond  of  Rousseau  whom,  out  of  kind- 
ness as  well  as  love  for  him,  he  brought  with  him  to  Eng- 
land. Although  this  friendship  did  not  last,  yet  Rousseau 
exerted  a  great  influence  over  him.  Hume  was  interested 
in  the  formation  of  The  Select  Society  of  Edinburgh, 
which  was  constituted  on  the  style  of  the  French  Acad- 
emy. His  friend  Adam  Smith  made  the  opening  speech 
there.  In  scepticism  Hume  shared  the  ideas  of  Voltaire. 
These  ideas  were  then  quite  general,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
Paris,  and  formed  the  bases  for  discussions  there  among  the 
learned  circles. 


10.    From  Calderwood  on  David  Hume. 


112        The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

Hume's  chief  work,  in  philosophy,  was  to  rid  it  of  error 
and  confusion.  He  wanted  to  place  before  men  a  simple 
and  complete  exposition  of  experiences,  guarded  at  every 
point  by  an  unhesitating  and  bold  scepticism  as  to  every- 
thing that  will  go  beyond  experience.  This  is  the  mean- 
ing of  Hume's  scepticism  and  in  this  we  see  Descartes's 
rule  of  not  accepting  that  which  we  do  not  know  to  be 
true,  cannot  prove  to  be  true. 

Of  Voltaire's  influence  on  Germany,  we  have  spoken  at 
length.  He  also  wielded  an  immense  influence  over  Eng- 
land both  by  his  correspondence  with  his  many  literary 
friends  there  and  also  by  living  there  as  he  did  for  some 
time.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  John  Hervy  in  1740,  Voltaire 
himself  speaks  of  the  influence  of  France  on  England.  He 
says: 

Songez,  milord,  que  sans  le  voyage  et  les  experiences 
de  ceux  qu'il  envoy  a  a  Cayenne,  enlb^Z,  et  sans  les  mesures 
de  M.  Picard,  jamais  Newton  n'eut  fait  ses  decouvertes 
sur  V attraction.  Regardez,  je  vous  prie,  un  Cassini  et  un 
Huygens,  qui  renoncent  tons  deux  leur  patrie  qu'ils 
honorentj  pour  venir  en  France  jouir  de  lestime  et  des 
bienfaits  de  Louis  XIV .  Ft  pensez-vous  que  les  Anglais 
mimes  ne  lui  aient  pas  d'obligation?  Dites-moi,  je  vous 
prie,  dans  quelle  cour  Charles  II  puisa  tant  de  politesse  et 
tant  de  gout.  Les  bons  auteurs  de  Louis  XIV  n'ont-ils  pas 
etc  vos  modeles  N'est-ce  pas  d'eaux  que  votre  sage  Addi- 
ion,  I'homme  de  voire  nation  qui  avait  le  goilt  le  plus  sur, 
a  tire  souvent  ses  excellentes  critquesf  L'eveque  Burnet 
avoua  que  ce  gout,  acquis  en  France  par  les  courtisans  de 
Charles  II,  reforma  chez  vous  jusqu  a  la  chaire  malgre 
la  difference  de  nos  religions:  tant  la  saine  raison  a  par- 
tout  d' empire! 

Dites-moi  si  les  bons  livres  de  ce  temps  n'ont  pas  servi  a 


Fifth  Period  1 1 3 

I' education  de  tous  les  princes  de  I' empire.  Dans  quellei 
cours  de  I' Aliening n c  n'a-t-on  pas  vu  des  theatres  francaisf 
Quel  prince  ne  tachait  pas  d'imiter  Louis  XlVf  Quelle 
nation  ne  suivait  pas  alors  les  modes  de  la  France'  Louis 
XIV  a  instruit  les  nations;  tout,  jusqu  'a  ses  f antes  leur 
a  etc  utile.  Des  protestants,  qui  out  quittc  ses  Etats  mil 
parte  cliez  vous-memes  une  Industrie  qui  faisait  la  richessc 
de  la  France.  sComptez-vous  pour  rien  tant  de  manufac- 
tures de  soic  et  de  cristaux?  Ces  derniercs  surtout  f ureal 
perfectionnees  cliez  vous  par  nos  refugics,  et  nous  avanos 
perdu  cc  que  vous  avez  acquis.  En  fin  la  language  franchise, 
milord,  est  devenue  presque  la  langue  universelle. 

Mark  the  predominance  of  French.  He  says  that  French 
had  become  almost  the  universal  language.  Then  he  goes 
on  to  say: 

Ce-sont  excellents  ecrivians  qui-ont  fait  cela.  Je  ne  con- 
sidere  pas  seulement  Louis  XIV  parce  qu'il  a  fait  du  bien 
aux  Francois,  mais  parce  qu'il  a  fait  du  bien  aux  hommes. 
II  a  choisit  Lulli  pour  son  musicien  et  ota  le  privilege  a 
Camber t ,  parce  que  Cambert  etait  un  homme  mediocre, 
et  Lulli  un  homme  superieu.  II  savait  distinguer  I'espril 
du  genie;  il  donna  a  Quinault  les  sujets  de  ses  operas; 
il  dirigeat  les  peintures  de  Lebrun;  il  soutint  Boiieau, 
Racine  et  Moliere  contre  leurs  ennemis;  il  encouragea  les 
arts  utiles  comrne  les  beaux-arts  belles  lettres  et  toujours 
en  connaissance  de  cause;  il  preta  de  V argent  a  Van 
Robais  pour  etablir  ses  manufactures,  il  avanca  des  mil- 
lions a  la  compagnie  des  Indes,  qu'il  avait  formce;  il  don- 
na 'des  pensions  aux  savants  et  aux  braves  officers.  C'est 
encore  plus  d'un  grand  siecle  que  d'un  grand  roi  que 
j'ecris  I'histoire.11 

What  could  more  clearly  show  the  wonderful  influence 


11.    Voltaire's  Selected  Letters  by  Syms,  p.  83. 


1 14       The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

France  has  had  on  other  countries  until  at  this  golden  age 
of  literature  and  art  she  had  reached  supremacy?  We  must 
also  remember  that  these  letters  were  not  written  by  one 
who  was  accustomed  merely  to  guess  at  things,  but  by  one 
who  was  careful  of  his  statements,  and  by  one  who  had 
visited  many  countries  and  knew  what  he  was  saying. 

Gibbon,  the  historian,  also  came  under  French  influence. 
In  his  historical  writings,  he  shows  a  certain  contempt  for 
theological  doctrines  prevalent  in  France  at  that  time,  and 
he  no  doubt  reflects  the  French  infidelity. 

The  influence  is  reproduced  more  conspicuously  in  Paine 
a  politician  and  a  creature  of  the  Revolution,  who  derives 
his  doctrines  from  the  English  deists,  his  ribaldry  from 
Voltaire,  and  his  politics  from  Rousseau.  .  .  .  The 
French  spirit  animates  literature  in  the  poetry  of  Byron 
and  Shelly ;  the  one,  a  type  of  the  scepticism  of  despair,  the 
other  of  the  madness  of  enthusiasm:  the  one  drawn  down 
to  earth,  the  other  lifted  up  into  the  ideal.12 

Wordsworth  also  visited  France  and  was  inspired  by 
French  thought. 

From  seventeen  hundred  onwards,  England  came  under 
the  French  influence  in  a  very  clear  and  unmistakable  man- 
ner. Addison  is  the  pupil  of  Boileau,  more  gifted,  more 
refined,  and  more  brilliant  than  his  master,  but  still  never 
forgetful  of  his  master's  teachings. 

Again  Welsh  goes  on  to  say: 

Pope  who  has  inevitably  been  much  imitated  in  France, 
owed  much  to  her  in  his  earlier  days.    The  style  and  man- 


12.    Welsh  Mod.  Hist,  of  Lit,  p.  312. 


Fifth  Period  115 

ner  of  his  letters  remind  us  of  Balzac  and  of  Voltaire;  his 
moral  poems  have  the  precise  turn  of  wit  characteristic  of 
Boileau ;  he  represents  as  it  were  the  transition  between 
Boileau  and  Voltaire;  moreover,  the  Dunciad  reads  as 
though  it  were  copied  from  the  Lutrin,  the  evident  rela- 
tionship between  the  two  poems  being  shown  in  their  close 
similarity  of  style.  These  great  names  must  be  supple- 
mented by  those  of  Walter,  the  correspondent  of  La  Fon- 
taine, in  whom  we  might  almost  say  was  revived  all  that 
was  finest  in  our  witty  precieux  of  the  seventeenth  century ; 
Garth,  the  amusing  humorist,  who  recalls  the  French 
burlesques,  and  whose  works  Voltaire  so  highly  appreciated 
as  to  translate  some  of  them ;  Arbuthnot,  Gay,  Lord  Bol- 
lingbroke,  Lord  Chesterfield.     .     .     ,13 

These  English  humorists  of  the  early  eighteenth  cen- 
tury owe  very  much  to  the  French  writers.  Thus  we  see 
that  France  led  in  literature  and  philosophy.  She  may 
claim  as  much  for  science.  In  the  latter  part  of  the 
eighteenth  and  the  nineteenth  century,  France  was  the 
foremost  in  science.  The  great  students  from  all  over  the 
world  directed  their  gaze  to  Paris,  as  the  only  place  for 
the  deep  and  thorough  study  of  modern  methods,  and 
where  the  new  and  great  scientific  ideas  were  collected  to 
a  focus.  Paris  remained  the  centre  of  scientific  investiga- 
tion and  thought  for  more  than  half  a  century.14  It  was 
here  that  the  foundation  of  nearly  all  the  modern  sciences 
was  laid.  The  many  problems  of  Newton's  Principia  were 
treated  to  some  extent  by  Clairault. 

For  a  full  announcement  of  its  scientific  value  and  its 


13.  Welsh  Modern  History  of  Literature,  p.  70-71. 

14.  See  Merz's  History  of  European  Thought  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,  p.  06. 


Ii6       The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

hidden  resources  we  are  indebted  to  Laplace,  whose  Me- 
canique  Celeste  was  the  first  comprehensive  elaboration  of 
Newton's  ideas,  and  whose  Systeme  du  Monde  became  the 
scientific   gospel   of   a   whole   generation   of   Continental 

thinkers.15 

Not  only  the  scientists,  but  all  thinkers  in  France,  were 
at  this  time  greatly  interested  in  mathematics  and  in  all  of 
the  sciences.18 

No  other  country  could  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury boast  of  such  splendid  means  of  scientific  instruction 
as  then  existed  in  Paris.     (Merz.,  p.  104.) 

The  great  schools  of  Paris  ever  have  been  her  just  pride. 
Most  of  these  schools  still  exist  for  the  glory  of  the  French, 
and  the  benefit  of  all,  and  bear  proof  to  the  high  spirit  and 
the  loftiness  of  the  ideals  of  the  French  nation. 

Science  can  boast  of  having  been  worthily  represented 
and  supported  in  the  two  great  schools  which  still  bear 
their  original  designation,  and  which  can  and  which  do 
show  a  record  of  celebrated  names  and  magnificent  works 
superior  probably  to  those  of  any  other  similar  institutions 
in  Europe.  They  are  the  Ecole  normale  superieure  and 
the Ecole  centrale  des  Travaux  publics,  better  known  by  the 
title  Ecole  poly  technique.  The  founders  of  these  magnifi- 
cent institutions  recognized  that  in  spite  of  applications, 
mathematics  and  physics  are  the  indispensable  basis  of  the 
studies  in  view.17 


15.  Hist,  of  Eu.  Thought  in  the  19th  Cent,  by  Merz,  p.  96. 

16.  "The  Paris  Academy  had  as  far  back  as  1671,  received 
the  funds  with  which  to  commence  its  labours  in  connection 
with  the  survey  of  the  kingdom  and  its  extensive  dependen- 
cies."   Merz,  p.  99. 

17.  See  also  Merz,  p.  104. 


Fifth  Period  1 17 

It  has  well  been  said  that  but  few  works  have  been 
more  extensively  read,  or  more  generally  appreciated,  than 
Laplace's  Essai  philosophique  sur  les  Probabilities,  and  the 
Systeme  du  Monde  by  the  same  author.  The  French  were 
indeed  the  leaders  in  the  advancement  of  the  exact  sciences, 
and  in  this  respect  did  a  great  work  for  the  world.18  John 
Herschel  has  also  said  that  if  all  the  literature  of  Europe 
were  to  perish,  with  the  exception  of  the  two  essays  men- 
tioned above,  namely,  Laplace's  Systeme  du  Monde  and 
Essai  philosophique  sur  les  Probabilites,  they  alone  would 
suffice  to  convey  to  the  latest  posterity  an  impression  of  the 
intellectual  greatness  of  the  age  which  could  produce 
them,  surpassing  that  afforded  by  all  the  monuments  that 
antiquity  has  left  us.  Another  great  representative  of 
French  science  is  George  Cuvier.  Through  these  two 
great  men,  the  exact  scientific  spirit  asserted  itself  and 
through  their  efforts  it  made  its  made  through  all  of  civ- 
lized  Europe.  (Merz's  History  of  European  Thought  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century.)  France  spared  neither  time  nor 
money  in  perfecting  her  scientific  schools  and  we  owe  very 
much  to  her  patient  investigations  in  the  field  of  higher 
mathematics.  Let  us  quote  from  Merz :  "No  learned  body 
did  more  to  perfect  the  study  of  higher  calculus  than  the 
Paris  Academicians."     p.  191. 

The  French  writers  of  the  seventeenth  century  made 
themselves  felt  throughout  all  of  Europe,  in  science,  poli- 
tics, literature  and  art. 

It  was  a  glorious  era  in  French  history,  however  it  may 


18.     See  also  Merz's  History  of  Eu.  Thought  of  the  19th 
Cent.,  p.  104. 


x4 


1 1 8       The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

be  regarded,  according  to  the  standpoint  of  the  nationality 
of  the  student ;  as  had  been  the  thirteenth  century,  so  again 
in  the  seventeenth  France  was  unanimously  acclaimed  the 
intellectual  sovereign  of  Europe,  all  eyes  being  turned 
towards  her,  and  all  ears  listening  for  her  action.  The 
predominant  influence  of  French  literature  is  every  where 
perceptible ;  for  a  time  its  prestige  blocked  the  way  and  ar- 
rested the  action  of  every  individual  impulse,  every  nation- 
al movement,  in  the  literary  history  of  every  nation. 
(Welsh's  Modern  History,  p.  71.) 

Welsh  thus  has  given  us  a  complete  picture  of  the  great- 
ness of  France  and  her  immense  influence  on  all  of  Europe. 
It  seems  we  can  say  no  more.  Nevertheless,  let  us  also 
hear  what  Henry  Wakeman  says : 

From  the  court  of  Louis  XIV  flowed  out  influences  far 
more  potent  than  those  which  followed  the  feet  of  his  sol- 
diers or  the  coaches  of  his  diplomatists.  Versailles  set  the 
fashion  to  the  civilized  world.  French  manners,  French 
dress,  French  speech,  French  art,  French  literature,  French 
preaching,  and  French  science  became  the  property  and 
the  models  of  civilized  Europe.  For  a  hundred  years  every 
department  of  life,  from  the  turning  of  a  couplet  to  the 
training  of  recruits,  from  the  composition  of  a  panegyric 
to  the  designing  of  a  card  table  everything  is  ruled  by  the 
French  instinct  of  order,  cramped  by  the  French  love  of 
artificial  completeness,  refined  by  the  French  genius  for 
finish,  illuminated  by  the  justness  of  French  taste.  There 
are  few  kings  to  whom  it  has  been  given  to  dictate  to  civ- 
ilization for  a  century  the  principles  by  which  she  is  to  live. 


CHAPTER  VI 
Bergson  at  the  College  of  France 

EVEN  to-day  we  turn  to  France  who  leads  us  into  the 
light  of  a  new  field  of  philosophy — that  of  Bergson. 
The  Bergson  philosophy  the  philosophy  of  change,  differs 
from  the  school  of  the  realists  who  claim  that  knowledge 
lies  in  the  outside  world  of  space — outside  of  ourselves,  as 
well  as  from  that  of  the  idealists  who  say  that  knowledge 
lies  within  us — in  the  human  mind.  Bergson  contends 
that  knowledge  is  based  on  intuition,  which  is  a  part  of 
life  itself ;  that  life  is  the  reality  for  which  life  is,  and  that 
nature  takes  up  the  order  which  knowledge  discovers; 
that  in  as  much  as  knowledge  is  for  life  and  not  life 
for  knowledge  the  first  and  most  important  thing  is  to 
understand  the  real  meaning  of  life.  Bergson  says  that 
life  is  a  continuous  moving  on,  ever  changing,  ever  be- 
coming; that  the  past  gathered  up  into  the  present  moves 
on  into  the  future ;  that  life  is  a  never  repeating  ever  be- 
coming reality;  this  onward  movement  preserves  the  past, 
picks  up  the  present  and  creates  the  future. 

Bergson  says  where  there  is  life,  there  is  change.  Should 
change  cease  life  would  cease. 

The  Universe  is  not  a  perfect  complete  system  but  is 
itself  a  continuous  becoming  and  ever  changing  reality: 
that  reality  is  not  matter  nor  is  it  mind  but  is  itself  a 
creative  living  evolution ;  that  our  knowledge  is  not  based 
on  the  purely  intellectual  but  rather  on  intuition.     This 

119 


120       The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

intuition  is  of  itself  life,  and  that  intellect  is  formed  from 
it  by  life  itself.  Life  creates  intuition  and  intellect  which 
guide  and  direct  the  activities  of  all  creatures  endowed 
with  it. 

Bergson,  at  the  College  of  France,  is  sending  his  phil- 
osophy into  all  parts  of  the  world.  His  three  great  works 
"Time  and  Freewill,"  "Matter  and  Memory"  and  "Crea- 
tive Evolution"  will  certainly  have  a  tremendous  in- 
fluence in  the  right  direction  upon  all  thinking  nations. 

What  more  can  we  say?  It  was  French  science,  French 
philosophy,  French  literature  and  French  art  that  ruled 
the  world.  An  individual  perfect  in  manners,  in  education 
and  taste  cannot  live  among  the  uncultured  men  of  any 
class  without  becoming  the  ruling  power,  without  letting 
his  light  shine  to  the  benefit  of  those  around  him.  No 
more  can  a  nation.  France  was  earnestly  striving  towards 
perfection  at  this  time,  and  must  necessarily  let  her  bea- 
con light  shine  in  all  directions  affecting  brightness  and 
culture  among  all  the  enlightened  and  appreciative  nations 
at  this  time.  All  the  nations  that  lived  within  the  radius 
of  the  brilliant  literary  lights  of  France  could  not  help  be- 
ing influenced  by  her  high  culture  and  her  lofty  ideals.  In 
England  this  influence  was  felt  from  the  earliest  times  to 
the  present,  but  was  especially  strong  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries.  In  Germany  it  was  most  potent 
from  the  time  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  to  the  year  1760, 
or  to  the  time  of  Lessing's  power  over  the  German  theatre  ; 
for  Lessing  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  one  who  tried  to 
banish  French  influence  from  Germany.  In  Spain  it  was 
pre-eminently  great  in  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  lasted  up  to  about  the  middle  of  the  nine- 


Bergson  at  the  College  of  France  121 

teenth. 

Whither  shall  this  influence  lead  us?  Thoughts  of  so 
great  a  people  cannot  die!  We  feel  their  influence  all 
around  us,  in  science,  in  mathematics  and  all  kinds  of 
weights  and  measurements  which  are  so  much  needed  in 
our  modern  civilization  and  in  the  government  of  the  great 
nations  of  today ;  in  the  natural  sciences  that  have  wrought 
such  reform  in  botany  and  in  agriculture;  and  in  the 
medical  science  so  well  founded  and  carried  on  in  the  old 
Academy  of  Sciences.    Merz  says : 

Fontennelle,  separated  the  departments  of  science  and 
metaphysics  .  .  .  and  in  his  connection  with  the 
Academy  Francaise  he  did  perhaps  more  than  any  other 
writer  to  establish  the  superiority  of  style  and  clearness 
of  diction  for  which  the  great  French  men  of  science  are  so 
remarkable  and  so  superior. 

The  first  representative  of  this  academic  spirit  and  cul- 
ture was  Fontenelle,  who,  living  during  a  hundred  years, 
from  1657-1757,  was  secretary  of  the  Academie  des 
Sciences  during  forty-two  years  from  1699-1741.  Among 
his  successors  were  men  like  Condorcet,  Cuvier,  and 
Argo.  (Merz  History  of  Eu.  Thought  in  19th  Cent.,  p. 
134.)     See  foot  note  Merz,  p.  134. 

For  further  information  on  what  France  has  done  for 
us  in  the  medical  science  see  also  Merz,  on  page  122  and 
also  page  135,  a  part  of  which  we  will  now  quote: 

Allied  with  this  institution,  and  directly  inspired  by  its 
spirit,  were  the  great  schools  of  natural  science,  the  collec- 
tions of  natural  objects,  later  also  the  great  medical  in- 
stitutions of  France. 

How  shall  we  be  able  to  estimate  the  value  of  these  early 


122       The  Influence  of  French  Literature  on  Europe 

schools  of  science  and  the  careiul  and  painstaking  labors  of 
the  great  French  scientists?  We  believe  that  many  of 
the  later  and  important  discoveries  and  inventions  could 
not  have  been  possible  without  them. 

Who  can  measure  the  good  done  by  these  men?  Who 
can  ever  fully  appreciate  the  influence  of  the  makers  of  the 
French  literature  of  the  Golden  Age?  We  still  hear  their 
gentle  tones  in  the  sweetest  of  all  spoken  languages.  Their 
influence  is  brought  to  us  in  the  tender  voice  and  the  pleas- 
ing accents  of  their  beautiful  songs  and  poetry,  true  gems 
of  the  highest  form  of  literature! 

As  Joan  of  Arc  amid  the  apple  trees 

With  sacred  joy  first  heard  the  voices,  then 

Obeying  plunged  at  Orleans  in  a  field 

Of  spears  and  lived  her  dream  and  died  in  fire, 

Thou,  France,  hast  heard  the  voices  and  has  lived 

The  dream  and  known  the  meaning  of  the  dream, 

And  read  its  riddle :  how  the  soul  of  man 

May  to  one  greatest  purpose  make  itself 

A  lens  of  clearness,  how  it  loves  the  cup 

Of  deepest  truth,  and  how  its  bitterest  gall 

Turns  sweet  to  soul's  surrender. 

Edgar  Lee  Masters. 

As  France  has  been  in  the  past,  so  may  she  continue  to 
be  in  the  future,  the  reigning  queen  of  polite  literature, 
quietly,  yet  in  a  thousand  ways,  exerting  her  influence  for 
refinement  and  culture.     Vive  la  France! 


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INDEX 


Abelard,  Knight-errant  of  phi- 
losophy,   106 

Academy,  French,  31  ;  scho- 
lasticism, 32 

Academy  of  Dijon,  66 

Addison,   114 

Agathon,  83 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  16 

Alcuin,  promoter  of  public 
works,  17 ;  first  humanist,  n. 

32 

Algebra,  improved  by  Des- 
cartes,  108 

Alkina,  Henry  von,  18;  Palace 
schools,  32 

Angelo,  Michael,  20 

Balzac,  transition  between 
Bolieau   and    Voltaire,    115 

Baumann,  Nicholas,   18 

Beranger,  great  songster,  Chan- 
son  Nouvelles,   102 

Bergson,  modern  philosophy, 
at  college  of  France,  119; 
wrote  Time  and  Freewill, 
120;  Matter  and  Memory, 
Creative  Evolution,  120 

Bernys,  Jacob,  29 

Berquin,    21 

Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  23,  n.  24 

Boileau,  27 ;  42,  46,  97,  114; 
wrote  Lutrin,  46 

Bourdaloue,  49 

Boussuet,  court  preacher,  48, 
49 ;  Oraisons  funebres,  40 ; 
Le  Discours  sur  l'histoire 
universelle,  49 

Boyle,  great  influence  on  Ger- 
many in  religion  and  ration- 
alism, 60 

Briconnet,  21 


Britannica  Encyclopaedia,  n.  23, 
11.  24,  n.  30,  n.  32,  n.  44.  n. 
45,  79,  80,  n.  109,  n.  1 10 

Ruffon,  naturalist  and  philoso- 
pher, 56;  effect  of  Histoire 
Naturclle,  56 

Byron,   114 

Calvin,  wrote  L'institution  Cre- 
tienne,  21,  22,  27,  28 

Cambridge's  Modern  History, 
n.  22,  n.  31,  n.  38,  n.  43,  n.  46, 
n.   51,    no 

Canterbury   Tales,    n.    23 

Causabon,  28;  Exercitationes 
contice   Baronium,  29 

Chanson  de  Roland,  15 

Chanson  Nouvelles,  Beranger, 
102 

Charles,  The  Great,  attracted 
distinguished  scholars  to  his 
court,  16,  n.  32 

Chateaubriand,  Essai  sur  la 
Revolution,  Genie  du  Chris- 
tianisme  Rene,  published 
1808;  this  book  is  said  to 
have  created  the  sentiment 
which  gave  birth  to  'Childe 
Harold,'  101 

Chaucer,  n.  23 

Clairault,  115 

Colet.  106 

College  of  France,  21,  28,  92 

Corneille's,  Cid,  Horace,  Cinna, 
Polyeucte,  Rodogune,  Le 
Menteur,  Pompee,  31,  42 

Cousin's  History  of  Philoso- 
phy, 36 

Crown's  Encyclopaedia,  n.  16, 
n.  58 

Cuvier,  George,  117 


125 


126 


Index 


d'Alembert,  encyclopaedist,  57, 
58,  66;  atheism  and  mater- 
ialism, 57 

Dante,  105 

Decameron,  23 

Del  Cielo,  Maria,  96 

Delphine,  work  by  Mme.  de 
Stael  in  which  she  voices 
many  of  Rousseau's  ideas,  99 

Descartes,  rationalism,  33,  107 ; 
father  of  modern  philosophy, 
analytical  geometry,  108,  Dis- 
cours  de  la  Methode,  107; 
Les  Meditationes  de  prima 
philosophia,  33 ;  Principia 
Philosophiae,  34;  Traite  des 
passion,  34;  his  Mone  was 
never  published,  35;  his  in- 
fluence in  Germany,  Holland, 
Sweden,  spent  much  time  in 
Stockholm,  36 ;  occasional- 
ism,   109 

D'Holbach,  German  represen- 
tative of  school  of  atheism,  58 

Diderot,  his  influence  on  Les- 
sing,  86,  87;  Encyclopaedist, 
was  called  to  Saint  Peters- 
burg by  the  Empress  Cath- 
erine, represented  the  school 
of  materialism  and  atheism, 
57 

Du  Cange,  29 

Dunciad,  as  if  copied  from 
Lutrin,   115 

Ecbasis  Captivi,  18 

Edict  of  Nantes,  58,  n.  58 

Eginhard,  built  schools,   17 

Ellis,  Havelock,  quotations 
from,   69 

Emile,  influence  on  world  edu- 
cation, 67 

England,  103 

English  Humorists,  owe  wit  to 
French,  115 

Epic,   Celtic,    15;   German,   15, 


16;  origin  of  Beast  Epic,  18; 
Reynard  the  Fox,  18 

Erasmus,  29;  visit  to  Oxford 
interpreted  intellectual  move- 
ment of  Renaissance  in 
France,  106 ;  Humanist,  great 
influence  over  England,  wrote 
and  studied  at  University  of 
Paris  where  he  paraphrased 
New  Testament.  His  letters 
read  in  schools  as  forms  of 
correct  French,  30 

Exercitationes  Contre  Baron- 
ium,  29 

Farel  of  Dauphine,  21 

Faust,  70,  71,  74 

Fenelon,  a  great  teacher ;  Tele- 
maque,  his  chief  work; 
Traite  de  l'education  des 
filles,  44,  45 

Fichte,  his  philosophy  moulded 
by  Rousseau,  Grundziige  des, 
gegenwartigen  Zeitalters,  64, 
70 

Fischart's  paraphrase  of  Ra- 
belais's  Gargantua,  20 

Flecher,  48 

Francis  I,  21,  22 

Francke's  German  Literature, 
25,  42,  63,  86 

Frederick  The  Great,  influ- 
enced by  Voltaire;  spoke  and 
read  more  French  than  Ger- 
man ;  paid  special  tribute  to 
rationalism,  59 

Gargantua,  24 

Geranimo,  Henito,  under 
French  influence,  97 

Germany,  mere  bundle  of 
states  in  1273,  22,  31 ;  So- 
cialism, 69 

Germany,  retarded  by  religious 
wars,  23,  91 

Gibbon,  under  French  influ- 
ence,  114 


Index 


127 


Goethe,  15  ;  influenced  by  Rous- 
seau, 64 ;  influenced  by  La 
Nouvelle  Heloise,  70 ;  Gotz 
von  Berlichingen,  striving  be- 
tween old  bondage  and  free- 
dom, 68 ;  Storm  and  Stress 
seen  in  Leiden  des  Jungen 
Werthers,  68;  influence  of 
Rousseau,  70,  74;  Faust,  73; 
French  influence  seen  in 
Herman  and  Dorethea,  89 

Gottfried's,  Tristam,  16 

Gottsched,  dictator  of  literary 
taste,  37,  38,  39,  60 

Grimm,  58,  66 

Heinrich   des  Gichesaere,   18 

Herder,  influenced  by  Montes- 
quieu, 52 

Hermann  and  Dorothea,  64 

Herschel,  John,  117 

Histoire,  by  Reynart  de  Vos, 
18 

Histoire  Naturelle,  effect  on 
world — gave  a  taste  for  the 
study  of  natural  history,  56 

Hobbs,  n.  no 

Holland  36 

Hosmer,  n.  82 

Hugo,  Victor,  61,  striving  for 
liberty,  Hernani,  Les  Miser- 
ables,  Notre-Dame  de  Paris, 
Maria  Tudor,   103 

Humanism.  32,  n.  32 

Hume,  David,  studied  and 
wrote  in  France,  no,  m, 
n.  in;  A  Treatise  of  Hu- 
man Nature,  no;  to  rid  phi- 
losophy of  error,  112 

Ibsen,  66 
Iffland,  57 

Institutes,  Calvin's,  22 
Iphigenia,  64 
Isengrimas,   18 

Italy,  in  classic  art  took  lead, 
20 


Jansenism,  36 

Johnson's,  History  of  Modern 
Europe,  n.  21,  n.  22 

Julian  II,  sent  for  French  ar- 
tists to  decorate  windows  of 
Vatican,  21 

Kant,    15;   Zum   Ewigen   Frie- 

den,  70,  n.  70 
Kelly,  98 
Klopstock,  82 
Kluge,  68,  74,  75,  76,  n.  78,  n.  80, 

n.  83,  n.  85,  n.  90;  on  'Storm 

and  Stress,'  75 
Kotzebue,  57 

La  Fontaine,  father  of  Ger- 
man fabulists,  43,  115;  satir- 
ist, 44 

Lambin,  Denis,  royal  printing, 
28 

La  Mettrie,  spent  much  time 
with  Frederick  the  Great,  60 

Lange,  History  of  French  Lit- 
erature, n.  36,  n.  45,  n.  46, 
n.  47,  n.  49 

Laplace,  Systeme  du  Monde, 
Mecanique  Celeste,  116;  Es- 
sai  philosophique  sur  les 
Probabilites,    117 

Larra,  Jose  de,  98 

Lefevre,  Jacques,  father  of 
French  Protestantism,  lec- 
turer on  theology  at  Paris, 
21 

Leibnitz,    occasionalism,    109 

Leon,  Jose,  96 

Lesage,  a  Frenchman,  author 
of  Gil  Bias,  94 

Lessing,  32;  influenced  by 
Pascal,  36;  tries  to  break 
away  from  French,  84;  es- 
tablishes German  theatre, 
87;  Hamburgische  Drama- 
turgic, theatre  at  Hamburg, 
87 ;  on  new  literature ;  Nath- 
an der  Weise,  n.  85;  influ- 


128 


Index 


enced  by  Diderot,  86,  87,  91 ; 
Minna  von  Barnhelm,  Miss 
Sara  Sampson,  a  counterpart 
to  Rousseau's  sentimentality, 
Emilia  Galotti,  90 

Lewis,  n.  108 

L'institution  Cretienne,  28 

Lipsius,  Justus,  29 

Llanos,  Jose,  97 

Lobo,  Gerado,  96 

Locke,  preferred  Descartes  to 
Aristotle,  n.  no 

Lodge,  22,   n.  23 

Logau,  80,  81,  n.  81 

Louis  XII,  domestic  architec- 
ture, 20 

Louis  XIV,  France  reached 
supremacy,  22 ;  court  preach- 
ers and  politics  of  the  pulpit, 
48;  golden  age  of  literature, 
50;  grandson  on  Spanish 
throne,  94,  95 ;  influence  of 
French  very  great  in  Spain, 

94 
Ludwig,  Peter,  93 

Lutrin,  46,  115 
Luzan,  97 

Maintenon,  Mme.  de,  founded 
girls  school,  47 

Maitre,  Joseph,  'Generateur  des 
Constitutions  Politiques',  102 

Maitre,  Xavier  de,  Voyage  au- 
tour  de  ma  chambre,   102 

Malbranche,  109 

Malherbe,  father  of  perfect 
French  poetry,  26 ;  poetry  as 
to  style  became  fixed  through 
him,  27 ;  great  writer  of  lyric 
and  odes,  27 

Mansilla,   96 

Marriages,  French  and  Span- 
ish, 123,  124 

Maupertius,  60 

Melendez,  97 

Merz,  n.  115,  n.  116,  n.  117, 
I2i,  n.  121 


Minna  von  Barnhelm,  90 

Minnesongs,  15,  16 

Moliere,  called  prince  of  comic 
poetry,  40;  'Le  Misanthrope,' 
41 ;  'Tartuffe,'  41 ;  'Ecole  des 
Femmes,'  'Les  Precieuses 
Ridicules,'  41 

Montesquieu,  political  science, 
52,  53;  his  'Considerationes,' 
'Esprit  des  Lois,'  54;  he 
was  elected  to  academy,  vis- 
ited England,  friend  of  Lord 
Chester,  53 ;  'Essai  sur  le 
Gout,'  'Considerationes,'  'Let- 
tres  Persones,'  n.  53 ;  in- 
fluence on  American  Spirit 
for  Liberty,  54;  influence 
great  on  Germany,  55 ;  in- 
spiration to  many  of  Her- 
der's ideas  on  liberty,  55 ; 
Goethe  also  inspired  by  him, 
55 ;  appreciated  greatly  in 
England,  55 ;  works  printed 
in  Geneva  to  escape  censure, 
55 ;  'Discours  sur  le  Style' 
attracted  much  attention  in 
foreign  lands,  57;  empha- 
sized style  in  writing,  57 

Montfaucon,  Bernard  de,  28 

Morain,  Nicolas  Fernandez  de, 
imitates   Moliere,  97 

Mullenger's,  'The  Schools  of 
Charles  the  Great.'  n.   17 

Muratori,  Lodovico,  97 

Musset,  on  Voltaire,  61 

Nathan  der  Weise,  36,  n.  37,  85 
Nelson's    Encyclopaedia,    17 
Newton's  Principia,  115,  116 
Nibelungen    Lied,    16 
Norman   Conquest,    103,   104 
Nouvelle  Heloise,  67 

Opitz,  26,  n.  26,  37,  38,  39 

Packard's   Lamark,  n.  56 


Index 


129 


Pantagruel,  24 
Paraphrase,  25 
Parcival,   Wolfram's,    16 
Parliament   of    Paris,    opposed 

teaching  of  new  thought  on 

freedom,  21 
Pascal,    one    of    greatest    Jan- 

senest    writers,    36;    'Letters 

Provinciates,'    'Pensees,'    36; 

'Nouvelles    Experiences 

touchant  le  Vide,'  37 
Peter  the  Great,  beginning  of 

French  thought  in  Russia,  93 
Petrarca,  Francesco,  23 
Philip   IV,  23 
Philip  V,  41 

Philosophy,  France  leads,  22 
Poetry,    didactic,    narrative    of 

fourteenth  century  of  French 

origin,  17 
Politianus,  24 
Politics,  France  leads,  23 
Pulpit,    orators,    Boussuet, 

Flecher,  49,  50 

Quintana,  Manual,  French  in 
everything  except  sentiment, 
98 

Rabelais,  24,  25 

Racine,  noted  for  rich  and 
melodious  verses,  46,  47 ; 
wrote  Esther  and  Athalie  for 
girls'  school  at  Saint  Cyr, 
47 ;  Andromaque,  n.  47 

Raphael,  classic  art,  renais- 
sance, 20 

Rationalism,  traced  to  early 
schools  in  France,  32 ;  origin 

of.  33 

Reformation,  France  takes 
lead  in,  21 ;  Francis  I,  stands 
by  Protestants,  21  ;  appoints 
Lefevre,  father  of  French 
Protestants,  as  tutor  to  his 
children,  21 

Reinike  de  Vas,    17,   19 


Renaissance,  carried  into  other 
countries  through  French 
masterpieces,  27;  effect  of 
French  on  Germany,  20;  De- 
finition of,  20;  Italy  took 
lead  in  classic  art.  France 
passed  it  on  into  Germany, 
England  and  Spain ;  domes- 
tic architecture  reached  high- 
est point  in  time  of  Louis 
XII,  20;  idea  of  union  came 
from  French  Renaissance, 
23 ;  leaders  were  Politianus 
and  Victorius,  24 

Restoration,  after  the,  102 

Review  Edinburgh,  n.  34,  35 

Reynard  the  Fox,  origin  of 
Epic,  18 

Rivarol,  wins  prize  by  his  Dis- 
cours  sur  l'universalite  de 
Langue    francaise,    60 

Rolandslied,   15 

Rollin,  called  bee  of  France, 
wrote  Traite  des  Etudes,'  52 

Roman  de  Renart,  18 

Roman  van  den  vos  Reinaerde, 
18 

Ronsard,  26,  37,  39 

Rosa,   Martinez   de.   98 

Roscelin,  one  of  the  Nomina- 
lists,  106 

Roscoe,   19 

Rousseau,  52;  all  feeling  and 
sentiment,  61 ;  influence  upon 
Europe  in  literature,  philoso- 
phy, politics  and  education. 
62;  gave  impetus  to  cause  of 
liberty  throughout  whole 
world ;  'Droit  de  l'homme,' 
62;  University  of  Jena  advo- 
cated his  principles.  62;  loved 
nature  and  hated  all  re- 
straint, 63 ;  storm  and  stress 
period  called  forth  in  Ger- 
many by  Rousseau's  Nou- 
velle  Heloise  and  Emile,  63 ; 
Schiller's  Wilhelm  Tell,   re- 


130 


Index 


fleets  Rousseau's  ideas  of 
republicanism,  63 ;  Wieland's 
Agathon  filled  with  his  ideals  ; 
Fichte  inspired  by  Rousseau 
takes  up  spirit  of  childlike 
innocence  of  good  conscience 
and  perfect  freedom  of  will, 
64,  70 ;  Goethe's  Hermann  and 
Dorothea  show  same  striving 
for  freedom.  64;  also  his 
Iphigenia  shows  triumph 
over  wrong  through  higher 
freedom  and  love  for  truth, 
64,  65 ;  Rousseau  reconciles 
individualism  and  collectiv- 
ism, 65 :  Discours  sur  l'ine- 
galite,  66 ;  Discours  sur  les 
Sciences  et  les  Arts,  sets 
scholars  thinking ;  places 
great  power  in  beauty,  66; 
influence  on  political  life, 
even  of  America,  66;  three 
greatest  works  are :  La  Nou- 
velle  Heloise.  du  Contrat  So- 
cial, and  Emile,  67;  his  ideas 
of  religion  called  "a  natural 
touch  with  nature,"  67 ; 
Rousseau's  extreme  senti- 
mentalitv  comes  out  in  Goethe 
in  striking  manner  in  Die 
Leiden  des  Tun  gen  Werther, 
68;  his  spirit  of  romanticism 
shows  strong  tendency  to- 
ward real  revolutionary 
ideas,  69;  Havelock  Ellis 
Rives  Rousseau  great  credit 
for  revolution,  69;  Emanuel 
Kant  became  imbued  with 
Rousseau's  ideas  as  is  seen 
in  Zum  Ewigen  Frieden,  70 
Russia,  French  influence  be- 
gins with  Peter  the  Great,  93 

Samanicego,   97 
Sans  Souci.  palace  of  Freder- 
ick the  Great,  59 
Scalinger,  Joseph,  29 


Scherer's,  History  of  German 
Literature,    n.    37 

Schiller,  promulgated  ideas  of 
Rousseau,  74.  77;  Wilhelm 
Tell,  75,  76;  Die  Rauber 
shows  the  same  revolt  against 
oppression  as  we  find  in 
Rousseau's  Contrat  Social, 
74;  Die  Verchworung  des 
Fiesko  von  Genua  also  re- 
flect Rousseau's  ideas,  76.  77', 
Kabale  and  Liebe,  Don  Car- 
los, Die  Kunstler.  77;  Wal- 
lenstein,  Im  Abfall  der  Nie- 
derlande.  78:  Dreizigjahrigen 
Krieg,  Die  Braut  von  Mes- 
sina mirrors  Rousseau's  sen- 
timentality and  eloquence.  78. 
79;  Der  Neffe  als  Onkel  is 
but  a  translation  from  the 
French,  70 ;  Schiller  finished 
German  version  of  Racine's 
Phedre,  80 

Scholasticism,  early  history  of, 
is  gradual  srowth  of  learn- 
ing after  Dark  Ages.  32; 
began  with  Alcuin  and  palace 
schools,  32 

Schools,  founding  of  school? 
in  France,  02 ;  College  of 
France.  02;  Academv  Fran- 
cais.  Polytechnic  Schools. 
Philological  Schools.  02 ; 
University  of  Sorbonne, 
Mme.  Rambouillet,  93 

Sevigne.  Mme.,  40;  daughter 
married  Count  de  Grignan. 
governor  of  Province,  48 

Shelly,    IT4 

Spain,  French  influence  is 
strong  in  beginning  of  19th 
century  and  continues  for  a 
hundred  years,  94 

Spanish  Academy.  Biblioteca 
Nacional,  95 :  Academy  of 
History  also  bears  testimony 
to  French  influence,  95  ;  many 


Index 


131 


books  translated  from  French 
into     Spanish;     gave     many 
French  works  as  their  own, 
96 
Spanish  marriages,   123 
Spanish  and  French  marriages, 

123,  124 
Stael,  Madame  de,  influence 
great  upon  German  writers, 
73,  991  attached  to  ideas  of 
liberty,  100;  at  Weimer  she 
met  Goethe,  Schiller  and 
Wieland,  99;  was  a  disciple 
of  Rousseau  and  brought  the 
influence  of  his  philosophy 
to  bear  on  Goethe  and  other 
writers,  99;  as  is  seen  in  the 
storm  and  stress  period  of 
the  German  literature; 
Goethe's  Gotz  von  Berlichen 
shows  this  revolt  against  op- 
pression and  striving  for 
freedom,  74 ;  wrote  Corrine 
in  France,  de  l'Allemagne, 
Considerations  sur  la  Rev- 
olution, Dix  Annees  d'Exil, 
100,  101 ;  tells  of  her  opposi- 
tion to  Napoleon,  100 

Theatre,  French  comic  as  well 
as  tragic  works  produced  in 
latter  half  of  17th  century : 
Misanthrope,  Le  Tartuffe, 
Iphigenie,  Atalie,  The  Fables 
of  Fontaine,  40 

Theatre,  German  introduced 
by  Lessing,  32;  French  trag- 
edy  sought  by   Germans,  37 

Thomas,  Calvin,  quotes  Rous- 
seau's   influence    on    Goethe, 

73 

Tolstoi,  his  love  for  French, 
94;  Tolstoi  and  Ibsen  are  to- 
day what  Diderot  and  Rous- 
seau were  in  the  17th  and 
18th  centuries,  66 

Traditions,   Graeco-Roman,   15 


Tristam,  Gottfried's,  16 
Triumvirate,  29 
Troubadour  songs,  16 
Turnabe,   Adrien,  great  Greek 
scholar,    28 

Ueberweg's    History    of    Phi- 
losophy,   n.   32 
University  of  the  Sorbonne,  21 
University    of    Jena,     Schiller 
propagates    ideas    of    Rous- 
seau, 62,  n.  62;   influence  of 
Rousseau,  63 
University   of    Paris,    106 
Ursins,  Mme.  enhanced  French 
influence  at  the  court,  96 

Victorious,  philologist  and 
critic,  24 

Villemain,  52 

Villena,  95 

Vinci,  da,  classic  art,  renais- 
sance, 20,  n.  20 

Voltaire,  52,  58,  85,  112;  all 
reason,  59;  called  France  the 
whipped  cream  of  Europe,  58; 
ideas  on  Rationalism  and 
religion  influenced  Germany, 
60;  influenced  Frederick  the 
Great,  59 ;  master  of  poetry 
and  prose,  60;  abhorred  re- 
ligious intolerance  and  po- 
litical persecution,  was  call- 
ed "sneering  satirist,"  61 ; 
an  altruist,  67;  ideas  on  ra- 
tionalism like  those  of  Rous- 
seau, 61 ;  Voltaire's  selected 
letters,  112,  113 

Wakeman,    Henry,    118 

Wallenstein,  shows  unlimited 
enthusiasm  for  the  liberty  of 
citizens,  78 

Weiland,  81 

Weimer,  Goethe  meets  Madame 
de  Stael,  a  disciple  of  Rous- 
seau, 73,  99 


132  Index 

Welsh's   Modern  History,   106,  Wood's    Hundred    Great    Men, 

n.  114,  n.  115,  118  108 
Wiese,    42  Wright's    History    of    French 
Wilhelm  Tell,  75,  76;  ideas  of  Literature,  34 
Democracy  inspired  by  Rous- 
seau, 78  Zwingli,    leader    in    movement 

for    Reformation,    22 


STUDIES       IN       LITERATURE 


The  Story  of  English  Speech.  By 
Charles  Noble. 

A  History  ok  English  Balladry.  By 
Frank   Egbert  Bryant. 

Shakbbpeare  Study  Programs:  The 
Tragedies.  By  charlotte  Porter  and 
Helen  A.  Clarice. 

Shakespeare  Study  Programs  :  The 
Comedies.  By  Charlotte  Barter  and 
Helen  A.  Clarke. 

The  Spirit  ok  the  American  Revolution 
as  Kevealed  in  the  Poetry  ok  the  Per- 
iod. By  tiamuel  YV.  Patterson.  Illus- 
trated. 

Browning  Studies.  By  V.  C.  Harrington. 
Hamlet,  an  Ideal  Prince.  By  A.  W. 
Crawford. 

A  History  ok  English  Literature.  By 
Robert  H.  Fletcher. 

English  Essayists.  By  William.  H. 
Davis. 

Present  Day  American  Poetry,  and  Oth- 
er Essays.  tsy  Harry  Houston  Beckham. 
A  History  of  Italian  Literature.  By 
Florence  Traill. 

The  Reign  ok  the  Manuscript.  By  Perry 
Way  la  ud  Sinks. 

The  Psychology  ok  Maeterlinck  as 
Shown  in  His  Plays.  By  Uranville  F. 
Zsturgis. 

German  Liberty  Authors.  By  Warren 
Washburn  Florer. 

The   Inkluence   of   French   Literature 
on  Europe.     By  Emeline  H.  Jensen. 
The    Novels    of    Ferdinand    Fabre.      By 
Bay  P.  Bowen. 

Life   and   Works   of   Friedrich   Hebbel. 
By   T.  M.  Campbell. 
Ibsen  in  Germany.    By  William  H.  Eller. 


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